Why this word is great
KATZBALGER — [Noun] A short Renaissance arming sword, of sturdy build, with a distinctive ess- or eight-shaped guard, the signature blade of the Landsknecht, used for close-quarters combat. From German Katzbalger, likely from Middle High German katze ("cat") + balgen ("to brawl, tussle"), evoking the clawing, frenetic scrum of a tavern brawl. Unlike the zweihänder (a towering two-handed cleaver for splitting pike formations) or the rapier (a needle for puncturing pride in sunlit duels), the katzbalger is a butcher’s tool for the press of bodies—the scrape of steel on steel in a reeking alley, the grunt of a mercenary shoving his way through the fray, the way its guard catches an opponent’s blade like a fist closing around a wrist. It is the weapon of a man who knows the fight will be ugly, and who has made his peace with that.