Bible Encyclopedias
Fauchion

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

i.e. FALCHION, is the rendering (Judith 13:6; Judith 16:9) of the Greek ἀκινάκης; (which the Romans also Latinized acinaces), a Persian term for the short sword, usually represented as a straight, thick poniard on the Persepolitan figures (see Smith, Dict. of Class. Ant. s.v. Acinaces), and therefore appropriately employed in the apocryphal account of the decapitation of Holofernes by the Hebrewess. (See SWORD).