Illustration of saber
- saber 1
variants
or chiefly British sabre
1
: a cavalry sword with a curved blade, thick back, and guard
2
a
: a light fencing or dueling sword having an arched guard that covers the back of the hand and a tapering flexible blade with a full cutting edge along one side and a partial cutting edge on the back at the tip compare épée, foil entry 4
b
: the sport of fencing with the saber
variants
or chiefly British sabre
sabered or sabred; sabering or sabring
ˈsā-b(ə-)riŋ 
: to strike, cut, or kill with a saber
Examples of saber in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Will Peischel, Curbed, 30 Apr. 2025
Washington must maintain its resolve in the face of Putin’s nuclear saber rattling, push the Russian economy to the precipice, and help Kyiv achieve the battlefield successes necessary to force Moscow to negotiate.
—Alexander Vindman, Foreign Affairs, 27 Mar. 2025
Donald Trump is rattling his coin purse, if not his saber, to add Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal Zone to his domain.
—Sun Sentinel Editorial Board, Sun Sentinel, 5 Jan. 2025
But the dire wolf is an actual real-world predator, which went extinct about 13,000 years ago after roaming North America for thousands of years before that, alongside saber tooth tigers and mastodons.
—Mike Snider, USA Today, 7 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for saber
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Noun
For now, Trump’s saber rattling has settled down to a 90-day, across-the-board tariff of 10 percent for most countries (with the notable exception of China), but even that can quickly become a surcharge of many thousands of dollars.
—Will Peischel, Curbed, 30 Apr. 2025
Washington must maintain its resolve in the face of Putin’s nuclear saber rattling, push the Russian economy to the precipice, and help Kyiv achieve the battlefield successes necessary to force Moscow to negotiate.
—Alexander Vindman, Foreign Affairs, 27 Mar. 2025
Donald Trump is rattling his coin purse, if not his saber, to add Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal Zone to his domain.
—Sun Sentinel Editorial Board, Sun Sentinel, 5 Jan. 2025
But the dire wolf is an actual real-world predator, which went extinct about 13,000 years ago after roaming North America for thousands of years before that, alongside saber tooth tigers and mastodons.
—Mike Snider, USA Today, 7 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for saber
Cite this Entry
“Saber.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/saber. Accessed 11 May. 2025.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
Share