lance

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /lɑːns/, US /læns/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English launce, borrowed from Old French lance (“spear, lance”),^[2][3][4][5] from Latin lancea (“light spear”),^[2][3] which Varro said was a Spanish word, so that it may be Celtiberian or otherwise Celtic;^[3][2] Hoad calls it of foreign origin.^[4] The verb is launcen, from lancier (“to throw, hurl, attack with a lance”), from Late Latin lanceō (“to wield a lance, pierce with a lance”).^[2][3][5] It is a doublet of launch.^[2] The French noun spread into the Germanic languages, as German Lanze, Middle Dutch lanse and Dutch lans.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A horseman's spear: about 1290 in the OED, the late 13th century in Etymonline, probably before 1300 in Arthour and Merlin in Barnhart.^[6][3][2] It was a surname, Lance, in 1198–99.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The verb, to throw, thrust or pierce, is from about 1300,^[2][3] and the surgical sense, to open with a lancet, from the late 15th century.^[3] A lancet was itself called a lance from 1575,^[6] and a horse soldier armed with a lance from 1602.^[6] Lancer is from 1590, in Marlowe's Tamburlaine.^[2] A lance corporal (1786) is a partly nativized form of the obsolete lancepesade (1570s), from Old Italian lancia spezzata (“old soldier”), literally “broken lance”.^[3][4]

Timeline

• 1198–99 – Lance (surname).^[2]
• c. 1290 – a horseman's spear.^[6]
• c. 1300 – to lance (verb).^[2][3]
• late 15th century – to cut with a lancet.^[3]
• 1590 – lancer.^[2]
• 1786 – lance corporal.^[3]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A long spear with a wooden shaft and a sharp metal head, used by horsemen.
2. A similar weapon for spearing fish or whales.
3. A lancer.
4. (surgery) A lancet.

Verb

1. To cut into a boil or abscess with a lancet.
2. To pierce with a lance.

Word family

• lancelike
• lancepod
• lancewood
• lanciform
• fer-de-lance
• freelance
• lancer
• outlance

Related words

• lancet
• launch
• lance corporal

Usage notes

In the West Country and Cornwall the sand eel is called a lance or launce.^[7][8]

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
8. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins