Life Taking Sword

The Japanese phrase 殺人剣 means Life Taking Sword and refers to the use of a sword with the purpose of taking a life. In contrast the phrase Life Giving Sword (katsujinken) refers to the use of a sword to protect or save a life. 殺人剣 is composed of the kanji 殺人 (read satsujin) meaning "killer; murderer" and 剣 Sword (ken). Hence another translation may be "Killing Sword".

Note that the Japanese word satsujin is often translated as murder but this is not strictly correct as satsujin only means "kill a person" which includes murder but it also may mean killing someone evil or killing someone in defense of oneself, one's family or one's country - so it does not have the strictly negative meaning that the word "murder" has.