Glaive
A glaive (or glave) is a European polearm, consisting of a single-edged blade on the end of a pole. It is similar to the Japanese naginata, the Chinese guandao, the Korean woldo, and the Russian sovnya. Overview. Typically, the blade is around long, on the end of a pole long, and the blade is affixed in a socket-shaft configuration similar to an axe head, rather than having a tang like a sword or naginata. Occasionally, glaive blades were forged with a small hook on the reverse side to better catch riders. Such blades are called glaive-guisarmes . According to the 1599 treatise "Paradoxes of Defence" by the English gentleman George Silver, the glaive is used in the same general manner as the quarterstaff, half pike, bill, halberd, voulge, or partisan. Silver rated this class of polearms above all other individual hand-to-hand combat weapons. The Maciejowski Bible (Morgan Bible) depicts an example of a two-handed glaive used on horseback. The contemporary term for this weapon may have been "faussart", which was used for a variety of single-edged weapons seen as related to the scythe (along with terms such as "falchion", "falcata, or fauchard" derived  from "falx", the Latin term for "scythe"). Other uses of the word. The word "glaive" has historically been given to several very different types of weapons.