glaive
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glaive
- /ɡleɪv/ US, UK
Rhymes with -eɪv
Where it comes from
From Middle English gleyve (“lance, glaive”), from Old French glaive (“lance; sword”), from Late Latin glavus. The further etymology is uncertain; one possibility is that glavus reflects Latin gladius (“sword”) crossed with clāva (“club”); another is that it derives from a re-crossing of gladius with Proto-Celtic *kladiwos (“sword”); yet another is that it is a borrowing into Late Latin from Old Irish claideb. All of the aforementioned words derive ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kelh₂- (“to beat; to break”). The Oxford English Dictionary notes that none of these words had the oldest meaning of Old French glaive (“lance”). The English word is cognate with Middle Dutch glavie, glaye (“lance”); Middle High German glavîe, glævîn (“lance”), Swedish glaven (“lance”).
noun glaives · glave · gleave
- A light lance with a long, sharp-pointed head. The lance, or glaive as it is often called, of the eleventh and twelfth centuries was quite straight and smooth; a vamplate was added in the fourteenth, small at first but larger later, for the protection of the right arm.
- A weapon consisting of a pole with a large blade fixed on the end, the edge of which is on the outside curve. The Welch Glaive is a kind of bill, ſometimes reckoned among the pole axes. They were formerly much in uſe. [...] In the Britiſh Muſeum there is an entry of a warrant, granted to Nicholas Spicer, authoriſing him to impreſs ſmiths for making two thouſand Welch bills or glaives.
- A sword, particularly a broadsword. [T]he glaiue which he did wield / He gan forthwith t'auale, and way vnto me yield.
Translations
Every language
Talk about this word "glaive." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/glaive. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. glaive. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/glaive "glaive." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/glaive.Cite this
@misc{glaive_2026,
title = {glaive},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/glaive},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
