a two-edged axe, used anciently by the Amazons in fight; as also by the seamen, to cut under the ropes and cordage of the enemy's vessels. The bipennis was a weapon chiefly of the oriental nations, made like a double axe, or two axes joined back to back, with a short handle. Modern writers usually compare it to our halbard or partisan; from which it differed in that it had no point, or that its shaft or handle was much shorter.