To fight with swords or to engage in combat or dispute.
From Latin 'digladiatus,' past participle of 'digladiare,' from 'di-' (apart) + 'gladius' (sword). Most common in English during the 17th-18th centuries to describe literal sword fighting or metaphorical intellectual combat.
Digladiate is one of those gorgeous obsolete words that perfectly captures the drama of sword fighting—it sounds like the clash of blades and is almost never used anymore, lost to history like the art it describes!
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