Etymologically
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lance

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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

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