Peace, mercy and blessings of God be upon you.
Intrigued by the word “misericordia” for “mercy” , I looked it up and found out that “misericord” is a medieval dagger. The evolution of the word? Which one? I am going to Treccani now.
I believe “misericordia” is Latin for mercy. The dagger has an “e”, misericorde, for wiki or Google purposes. Misericord is a small wooden structure on the underside of a seat in church. Interesting how that “e” changes things.
I suppose the dagger was used to give a “mercy stroke” to the victim, hence the name?
“misericordia” comes from Latin surely, as “miser” + “cors” (not sure about the spelling) “heart for the poor/unfortunate”.
Edit: etymology
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/misericors#Latin
According to the etymology I found it still stems from mercy - as does the ledge that acts as a seat in a church, as it allowed the monks to sit (or perch) a bit so they didn’t have to stand for hours during a service. A mercy indeed.
“A medieval dagger, used for the mercy stroke to a wounded foe”
Yes, I saw the Google and wiki references later, after reading your reply. The one I quickly looked up the first time was the wiktionary inside the CM. It has “misericord” (without the “e” at the end) as a medieval dagger. I agree that “e” changes things, it is just not consistent throughout the sources of info I guess.