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A wakizashi ( Japanese: 脇差) is a traditional Japanese sword with a shoto blade between 12 and 24 inches (between 30 and 60 cm, with an avarage of 50 cm), similar to but shorter than a katana, together with which it was often worn. When worn together the pair of swords were called daisho, which translates literally as "large and small"; "dai" or large for katana, and "sho" for wakizashi. Wakizashi were made with different zukuri shapes and sizes, and were generally thinner than katana. They very often had much less niku (lit. 'meat', the measure of how convex the edge is) and therefore cut softer targets much more aggressively than a katana.
A wakizashi was used as a samurai's weapon when the Katana was unavailable. When entering a building, a samurai would leave his katana on a rack near the entrance. However, the wakizashi would be on his person at all times, and therefore, it made a sidearm for the samurai, similar to a soldier's use of a pistol. The samurai would have worn it from the time they awoke to the time they went to sleep. In earlier periods, and especially during times of civil wars, a tanto was worn in place of a wakizashi.
See also tachi, tsurugi, saya, shoto.
East Asian swords
