Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A thrusting weapon with a long wooden shaft and a sharp metal head.
  • noun A similar implement for spearing fish.
  • noun A cavalry lancer.
  • transitive verb To pierce with a lance.
  • transitive verb Medicine To make a surgical incision in; cut into.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A balance.
  • To pierce with a lance, or with any sharp-pointed instrument.
  • To open with or as if with a lancet: as, to lance an abscess.
  • To throw in the manner of a javelin; launch.
  • To shoot forth as a lance.
  • To shoot or spring up.
  • To pierce.
  • noun A pointed stick of light timber used for the erection of a temporary telegraph-or telephone-line: used especially in military operations.
  • noun A long spear used rather by couching and in the charge than for throwing; especially, the long spear of the middle ages, and of certain modern cavalry regiments in which the use of this arm is retained.
  • noun Any long and slender spear: applied loosely to weapons of savage tribes, etc.
  • noun The instrument with which a whale is killed after being harpooned and tired out.
  • noun In carpentry, a pointed blade, as that affixed to one side of a chipping-bit or router to sever the grain around the path of the tool. It is also used in certain crozes, gages, and planes.
  • noun A pyrotechnic squib used for various purposes.
  • noun An iron rod which is fixed across the earthen mold of a shell, and keeps it suspended in the air when the shell is cast.
  • noun One skilled in the use of the lance; a soldier armed with a lance; a lancer.
  • noun In ichthyology, same as sand-lance.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To pierce with a lance, or with any similar weapon.
  • transitive verb To open with a lancet; to pierce.
  • transitive verb To throw in the manner of a lance. See Lanch.
  • noun A weapon of war, consisting of a long shaft or handle and a steel blade or head; a spear carried by horsemen, and often decorated with a small flag; also, a spear or harpoon used by whalers and fishermen.
  • noun A soldier armed with a lance; a lancer.
  • noun (Founding) A small iron rod which suspends the core of the mold in casting a shell.
  • noun (Mil.) An instrument which conveys the charge of a piece of ordnance and forces it home.
  • noun (Pyrotech.) One of the small paper cases filled with combustible composition, which mark the outlines of a figure.
  • noun (Med.) A lancet.
  • noun in the Middle Ages, and subsequently, a knight or roving soldier, who was free to engage for any state or commander that purchased his services; hence, a person who assails institutions or opinions on his own responsibility without regard to party lines or deference to authority. See also freelance, n. and a., and freelancer.
  • noun (Cavalry) a socket attached to a saddle or stirrup strap, in which to rest the but of a lance.
  • noun same as Lancepesade.
  • noun a lansquenet.
  • noun (Zoöl.) the fer-de-lance.
  • noun (Mil.) a kind of fuse filled with a composition which burns with a suffocating odor; -- used in the counter operations of miners.
  • noun to engage in a tilt or contest.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A weapon of war, consisting of a long shaft or handle and a steel blade or head; a spear carried by horsemen.
  • noun A wooden spear, sometimes hollow, used in jousting or tilting, designed to shatter on impact with the opposing knight’s armour.
  • noun fishing A spear or harpoon used by whalers and fishermen.
  • noun military A soldier armed with a lance; a lancer.
  • noun military An instrument which conveys the charge of a piece of ordnance and forces it home.
  • noun founding A small iron rod which suspends the core of the mold in casting a shell.
  • noun pyrotechnics One of the small paper cases filled with combustible composition, which mark the outlines of a figure.
  • noun medicine A lancet.
  • verb To pierce with a lance, or with any similar weapon.
  • verb To open with a lancet; to pierce; as, to lance a vein or an abscess.
  • verb To throw in the manner of a lance; to lanch.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin lancea, probably of Celtic origin.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French lance, from Latin lancea.

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Examples

  • Watanabex says: so i guess we can come back to being racist now since lance is posting pedophile friendly films

    15 YEAR OLDS, LOCKER ROOM, DESIRE ERUPTS 2008

  • WTF lance, is this some kind of joke that you forgot about?

    CHILDHOOD TO BE RAPED BY HOT CHICK 2007

  • December 20th, 2007 at 12: 23 pm baedo says: the floodgates have opened. lance is furiously posting to avoid paying any attention to the adjacent fattys, i think.

    CHINESE PEOPLE PLAYING BASKETBALL 2007

  • On the eve of our departure, I found my husband in the kitchen fashioning an impromptu lance from a now headless mop.

    lance - French Word-A-Day 2006

  • On the eve of our departure, I found my husband in the kitchen fashioning an impromptu lance from a now headless mop.

    French Word-A-Day: 2006

  • On the eve of our departure, I found my husband in the kitchen fashioning an impromptu lance from a now headless mop.

    French Word-A-Day: 2006

  • The Spanish original is 'rejoneo' which is a form of bullfighting where the bull is stabbed repeatedly with a wooden lance from the back of a horse.

    Selling Smoke 2005

  • January 23rd, 2008 at 5: 04 pm chodin says: lance is whore … lance is whore …

    DOCUMENTARY ROUNDUP 2008

  • The lance was a suitable tool, but hardly one of the magical weapons of lore.

    Father Swarat Matt Dennison 2010

  • I would like to break a lance for a postcolonial approach when looking at Scandinavia and certainly Estonia, as long as we are clear what a postcolonial approach entails.

    Archive 2009-07-01 David McDuff 2009

Comments

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  • When he leaps amidst us, with combustive dance

    All shall bear the branding, of his thermal lance

    - Exciter, Judas Priest

    May 4, 2007

  • Long pointed pole used as a weapon in war and jousting.

    August 25, 2008

  • lie javelin , spear ..

    March 24, 2013