A melee weapon, hand weapon or close combat weapon is any handheld weapon used in hand-to-hand combat, i.e. for use within the direct physical reach of the weapon itself, essentially functioning as an additional (and more impactful) extension of the user's limbs. By contrast, a ranged weapon is any other weapon capable of engaging targets at a distance beyond immediate physical contact.[1]
The term melee originates in the 1640s from the French word mêlée, which refers to disorganized hand-to-hand combat, a close-quarters battle, a brawl, or a confused fight; especially involving many combatants.[2][3][4]
The 1812 tabletop war game Kriegsspiel referred to the hand-combat stage of the game as a melee.[5] Later war games would follow this pattern.[6][7][8] From there, gamers would eventually begin to call the weapons used in that stage melee weapons.[9][10]
Melee weapons can be broadly divided into three categories[citation needed]:
Many weapons fit into multiple categories, or fit in between them; many polearms such as halberds, lucerne hammers, and guisarmes add edged and blunt methods of attack to a spear base, and various hooked weapons such as billhooks, fauchards, falxes, and becs de corbin evade simple classification; while flexible weapons such as whips don't fall into any of these categories.
