Melee weapon

Melee weapon
A melee weapon, hand weapon or close combat weapon, is any handheld weapon used in hand-to-hand combat, i.e. for use within the direct physical reach of the weapon itself, essentially functioning as an additional (and more impactful) extension of the user's limbs. By contrast, a ranged weapon is any other weapon capable of engaging targets at a distance beyond immediate physical contact.
Etymology
The term melee originates in the 1640s from the French word , which refers to disorganized hand-to-hand combat, a close-quarters battle, a brawl, or a confused fight; especially involving many combatants.
The 1812 tabletop war game Kriegsspiel referred to the hand-combat stage of the game as a melee. Later war games would follow this pattern. From there, gamers would eventually begin to call the weapons used in that stage melee weapons.
Categories
Melee weapons can be broadly divided into three categories:
, which cover spears, pikes, lances, and military forks. They typically have a sharp point designed to inflict penetrating trauma, even against heavily armoured opponents, and the length of such weapons gives a range advantage. Certain variants may also hook at enemies to disrupt and disarm them, or pull them from atop horses.
Edged weapons, which cover swords, daggers, axes, and war scythes. These weapons are designed to cause sharp trauma such as laceration, dismemberment, and exsanguination injuries, and are most effective against minimally armoured opponents. These are used to cut, hack, slash, thrust or stab.
Blunt weapons, which cover clubs, maces, war hammers, staves, and flails. These weapons are designed to cause blunt trauma, even through armour that would protect against penetration by pointed or edged weapons.
Many weapons fit into multiple categories, or fit in between them; many polearms such as halberds, lucerne hammers, and add edged and blunt methods of attack to a spear base, and various hooked weapons such as billhooks falxes, and evade simple classification; while flexible weapons such as whips don't fall into any of these categories.
List of melee weapons
Bladed weapons
Knife
Dagger (see List of daggers)
Sword (see Types of swords)
Bayonet
Scythe
Kama
Kukri
Machete
Emeici
Shuriken
Suntetsu
Polearms
Pike
Pilum
Halberd
Spear
Guandao
Bill
Naginata
Lance
Guisarme
Trident
Bident
Blunt weapons
Club
Flail
Mace
Police baton
Jitte
Tonfa
Stick
Nunchaku
Knuckleduster
Sports equipment (utilized as an improvised or makeshift melee weapon, usually used for criminal purposes)
Baseball bat
Cricket bat
Golf club
Pool cue
Javelin
Hockey stick
Boxing gloves
Tennis racket
Bowling ball
Hardware and utility tools utilized as improvised melee weapons (often used for criminal purposes, or depicted in fiction)
Entrenching tool (frequently used as a melee weapon in the confines of trench warfare during World War I)
Rebar
Rope (often used as a Garotte)
Pipe
Pitchfork
Scythe
Hammer
Sledgehammer
Axe
Pickaxe
Sickle
Chainsaw (commonly in fiction)
Ice pick
Shovel
Frying pan
Motorcycle sprocket (notably popular among criminals in Indonesia)
Chains
Crowbar
See also
Cold weapon
Melee (gaming)
Knife fight
List of premodern combat weapons
List of martial arts weapons
References
1980s neologisms