Side sword

In fencing terms, a side sword is a large dagger or main gauche wielded in the off-hand, mainly for the purpose of parrying an opponent's attacks.

Side sword in the SCA

In the SCA, the "cut and thrust" variation of rapier fighting is also known as sidesword. The initial experiments with this system aimed to better reflect some of the teachings of Marozzo, Agrippa etc in the use of the spada da lato (side sword) or spada da filo (edge sword).