Vorpal

Vorpal is a word coined by Lewis Carroll for the poem "Jabberwocky", used first in the line "He took his vorpal sword in hand" and "One, two! One, two! And through and through / The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! / He left it dead, and with its head / He went galumphing back." Vorpal is commonly assumed to mean "deadly" or "extremely sharp", derived from the words "voracious" (hungry) and "corporal" (Latin, relating to corpus - the body) meaning hungry for flesh. Many role-playing games have taken the latter interpretation, and since the hero brings the dead Jabberwock's head home in triumph have used "vorpal" to identify weapons with a magically enhanced ability to behead enemies. It is also occasionally interpreted as meaning the blade is warped.