Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A weapon consisting of a long shaft with a sharply pointed end.
- n. A shaft with a sharp point and barbs for spearing fish.
- n. A soldier armed with a spear.
- v. To pierce with or as if with a spear.
- v. To catch with a thrust of the arm: spear a football.
- v. Football To block (an opponent) by ramming with the helmet, in violation of the rules.
- v. Sports To jab (an opponent) with the blade of a hockey stick, in violation of the rules.
- v. To stab at something with or as if with a spear.
- n. A slender stalk, as of asparagus.
- v. To sprout like a spear.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A weapon consisting of a penetrating head attached to a long shaft of wood, designed to be thrust by or launched from the hand at an enemy or at game. Spears have been used as warlike weapons from the earliest times, and were the principal reliance of many ancient armies, as those of the Greeks, while in others they were used coördinately with the bow and the sword. They are represented by the bayonet in modern armies, though some use is still made of spears, of which javelins and lances are lighter, and pikes heavier, forms. Compare cuts under
bayonet and pike. - n. A man armed with a spear; a spearman.
- n. A sharp-pointed instrument with barbed tines, generally three or four, used for stabbing fish and other animals; a fish-gig.
- n. An instrument like or suggestive of an actual spear, as some articles of domestic or mechanical use, one of the long pieces fixed transversely to the beam or body of chevaux-de-frise, in some parts of England a bee's sting, etc.
- n. One of the pieces of timber which together form the main rod of the Cornish pumping-engine.
- n. The feather of a horse. Also called the streak of the spear. It is a mark in the neck or near the shoulder of some barbs, which is reckoned a sure sign of a good horse.
- n. A spire: now used only of the stalks of grasses: as, a spear of wheat.
- To pierce or strike with a spear or similar weapon: as, to spear fish.
- To shoot into a long stem; germinate, as barley. See spire.
- An obsolete form of speer.
Wiktionary
- n. A long stick with a sharp tip used as a weapon for throwing or thrusting, or anything used to make a thrusting motion.
- n. A soldier armed with such a weapon; a spearman.
- n. A sharp tool used by fishermen to retrieve fish.
- n. ice hockey an illegal maneuver using the end of a hockey stick to strike into another hockey player.
- n. wrestling a running tackle on an opponent performed in professional wrestling.
- n. A long, thin strip from a vegetable.
- v. To penetrate or strike with, or as if with, any long narrow object. To make a thrusting motion that catches an object on the tip of a long device.
- v. intransitive To shoot into a long stem, as some plants do.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A long, pointed weapon, used in war and hunting, by thrusting or throwing; a weapon with a long shaft and a sharp head or blade; a lance.
- n. Fig.: A spearman.
- n. A sharp-pointed instrument with barbs, used for stabbing fish and other animals.
- n. A shoot, as of grass; a spire.
- n. The feather of a horse. See Feather, n., 4.
- n. The rod to which the bucket, or plunger, of a pump is attached; a pump rod.
- v. To pierce with a spear; to kill with a spear.
- v. To shoot into a long stem, as some plants. See spire.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a long pointed rod used as a tool or weapon
- v. pierce with a spear
- v. thrust up like a spear
- n. an implement with a shaft and barbed point used for catching fish
Etymologies
- Old English spere, from Proto-Germanic *speri (compare Dutch speer, German Speer, Old Norse spjör), from *sparron (compare Middle Dutch sparre ("rafter"), Old Norse sparri ("spar, rafter"), sperra ("rafter, beam")), from Proto-Indo-European *spar- (compare Latin sparus ("short spear"), Albanian ferrë ("thorn, thornbush")). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English spere, from Old English.Alteration of spire1. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“This hungry bird gives another meaning to the term spear fishing - as she turns her unlucky prey into a fish kebab.”
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph
“His neck resembles an Easter ham and his spear is the size of a telephone pole.”
“An 'the blacksmith made him what he called a spear-head.”
“Here are a few of the options: Collins/Hi-Ball Ice This long "spear" is perfect for tall glasses, slowly lowering the temperature of your drink without affecting any carbonation in it.”
“Among these changes we can count: the shift from an organisation with mass support to a movement of mass participation; the adoption of the Freedom Charter as the ideological lodestar of the movement; the emergence of non-racialism not only as a goal but as a way to that goal; similarly, the emergence of non-sexism not only as an goal but as a way to that goal; the clear role of workers through their organised formations, which he described as the spear to the ANC's shield; through his own example, the clearest definition of the role of traditional leadership in a democratic and democratising society; the adoption of the tactic of international sanctions against apartheid South Africa; the adoption of armed struggle against apartheid and the organisational review necessary to ensure that adoption did not have the consequence of a wholesale legal assumption, so that to have been an ANC member did not automatically mean being part of the armed wing.”
“Anyone who can bring down a mammoth with a spear is pretty damn advanced in my book and I consider them an ancestor in spirit if not DNA.”
“He did, however, kill a buffalo with a spear from the ground.”
““Princess!” shouted Mist she had been fighting of more Goblin spear holders”
Superhero Nation: how to write superhero novels and comic books » David’s Second Review Forum
“Manute Bol, a herdsman who claims to have killed a lion preying on his cattle with a spear, is close to the exception that proves the rule.”
“The same principal applies to phishers who specialize in "spear phishing," campaigns that target specific employees, often system administrators or senior managers.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘spear’.
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Olde Englisc
English words of Anglo-Saxon origin.
onslaught, slain, clove, clave, thrice, nincompoop, scorn, storm, scant, lurk, beneath, atop and 143 more...
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PECH - fishing technology
anchor, berth, drop anchor, anchored floating..., artificial restoc..., bait, beam trawls, bottom gillnets, entangling nets, bottom nets, bottom-set nets, bottom pair trawl and 478 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11250 more...
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Names of military aircraft
Military aircraft are often given inspiring names. These are listed here.
Stratotanker, thunderbolt, lancer, spirit, Stratofortress, Hercules, Globemaster, Galaxy, Osprey, Sentry, Eagle, Falcon and 118 more...
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RELI - words with Biblical connotations
Words in the Bible evoking biblical stories or with special spiritual meaning. Proper names have been reduced to the minimum.
ark, judgement, holy, saint, baptism, spirit, love, eternal, altar, balsam, covenant, flood and 1115 more...
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Hockey
As the playoffs are on, some Hockey terms, and likely some Canadianisms in here.
face off, playoff beard, playoff, faceoff, bodycheck, hipcheck, icing, pass, facemask, stick, puck, Peter Puck and 182 more...
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LIT - Odyssey - key words and phrases
Key words of the Odyssey by Homer in English including all those famous repeating epitethons like
"bright-eyed Athene"
"wine-dark sea"
"rosy-fingered dawn"
"long suf...Odysseus, sea, Athene, goddess, land, Achaean, wind, wave, Ithaca, lead, Poseidon, mortal and 732 more...
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LIT - Iliad - key words and protagonists
abduct, abducting, abductor, Achaea, Achaean, Achilles, advise, Aegean, Aegean Sea, Aegina, aegis, Aeneas and 713 more...
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Here Fishy Fishy!
A broad list of words and phrases describing schemes and devices, from ancient to modern, that humans have devised to catch or harvest our underwater friends.
hook, line and si..., hook, line, sinker, pole, rod, bobber, artificial bait, natural bait, fly rod, spinner, plug and 76 more...
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Phonestheme: SP-, the Pointy Object
Grateful credit to http://reocities.com/SoHo/Studios/9783/phond1.html.
spear, spire, spine, spike, spur, spit, spork, spindle, rasp, spar, spicule, spiny and 16 more...
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What's That Pokémon Name?
Words used to create the names of Pokémon, which are usually portmanteaux.
bulb, dinosaur, ivy, venus, char, salamander, squirt, turtle, blast, tortoise, water, caterpillar and 525 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, S
scrunch, solace, sabotage, saccade, sacerdotal, sacrilegious, sacristy, snappy, skew, steadfast, scowl, scorch and 781 more...
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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barfi
turpentine, cognate, connotation, denotation, bias, unflinching, emptive, mob, amnesty, modestly, spear, incline and 150 more...
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eloise's Words
embrace, perfect, imagine, dance, water, color, echo, hollow, sorrow, beauty, impossible, violet and 438 more...
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what's the point?
word groups collected around pointing
spire, spear, spike, spit, steak, stick, stuck, pike, index, indicate, point, punctual and 7 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for spear.

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