Also 5 escaliboure, excalaber, excalybur, 7 escalibour, 9 excalibar, -our. [a. OF. Escalibor (with many variant spellings), corrupt form of CALIBURN, in Geoffrey of Monmouth (c. 1140) Caliburnus.
The Welsh form in the Mabinogion is Caledvwlch, which has a resemblance, that cannot well be accidental, to Caladbolg, the name of a famous sword in Irish legend. The Welsh and Irish forms do not correspond phonetically: the one or the other has probably undergone corruption. Prof. Rhŷs, taking the Irish form as the correct one, suggests the translation ‘hard-belly,’ i.e., ‘voracious,’ and thinks the Welsh form may have come from Breton.]
The name of King Arthur’s sword.
[c. 1300. Merlin (Huth MS.), 101 c. Saicies … que l’espee est apielee par son droit non Escalibor.]
a. 1450. Le Morte Arth., 3448. Excalaber, my swerd good.
c. 1450. Merlin, vii. 118. The right name [of the sword] was cleped Escaliboure, whiche is a name in ebrewe, that is to sey in englissh, kyttynge, Iren, tymber, and steill.
1470–85. Malory, Arthur, V. viii. Kyng Arthur … smote hym ageyne with Excalibur that it clefte his hede.
1598. B. Jonson, Ev. Man in Hum., III. i. You talk of Morglay, Excalibur, Durindana.
1825. Scott, Talism., xxvii. No sword on earth, were it the Excalibar of King Arthur, can cut that which opposes no steady resistance to the blow.
1842. Tennyson, Morte d’Arth., 103. King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur, Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake.
