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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

spear.

A long stick with a sharp tip used as a weapon for throwing or thrusting, or anything used to make a thrusting motion.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/spɪə̯(ɹ)/UK/spɪɹ/Canada, US
  1. A long stick with a sharp tip used as a weapon for throwing or thrusting, or anything used to make a thrusting motion.

  2. A soldier armed with such a weapon; a spearman.

    historical
  3. A lance with barbed prongs, used by fishermen to retrieve fish.

  4. An illegal maneuver using the end of a hockey stick to strike into another hockey player.

  5. In professional wrestling, a running tackle in which the wrestler's shoulder is driven into the opponent's midsection.

  6. A shoot, as of grass; a spire.

  7. The feather of a horse.

  8. The rod to which the bucket, or plunger, of a pump is attached; a pump rod.

  9. A long, thin strip from a vegetable.

    asparagus and broccoli spears
Where this word comes from

From Middle English spere, sperre, spear, from Old English spere, from Proto-West Germanic *speru, from Proto-Germanic *speru, from Proto-Indo-European *sperH-. Cognates See also West Frisian spear, Dutch speer, German Speer, Old Norse spjǫr, *sparrô, Middle Dutch sparre (“rafter”), Old Norse sparri (“spar, rafter”), sperra (“rafter, beam”); also Latin sparus (“short spear”), Albanian ferrë (“thorn, thornbush”).

verb/spɪə̯(ɹ)/UK/spɪɹ/Canada, US
  1. To pierce with a spear.

    transitive
  2. 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.

    broadly · transitive
  3. To tackle an opponent by ramming into them with one's helmet.

  4. To shoot into a long stem, as some plants do.

    intransitive
  5. To ignore as a social snub.

    especially · obsolete · transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English spere, sperre, spear, from Old English spere, from Proto-West Germanic *speru, from Proto-Germanic *speru, from Proto-Indo-European *sperH-. Cognates See also West Frisian spear, Dutch speer, German Speer, Old Norse spjǫr, *sparrô, Middle Dutch sparre (“rafter”), Old Norse sparri (“spar, rafter”), sperra (“rafter, beam”); also Latin sparus (“short spear”), Albanian ferrë (“thorn, thornbush”).

adj/spɪə̯(ɹ)/UK/spɪɹ/Canada, US
  1. Male.

    not-comparable
  2. Pertaining to male family members.

    not-comparable
Where this word comes from

From Middle English spere, sperre, spear, from Old English spere, from Proto-West Germanic *speru, from Proto-Germanic *speru, from Proto-Indo-European *sperH-. Cognates See also West Frisian spear, Dutch speer, German Speer, Old Norse spjǫr, *sparrô, Middle Dutch sparre (“rafter”), Old Norse sparri (“spar, rafter”), sperra (“rafter, beam”); also Latin sparus (“short spear”), Albanian ferrë (“thorn, thornbush”).

noun/spɪə̯(ɹ)/UK/spɪɹ/Canada, US
  1. The sprout of a plant, stalk

  2. A church spire.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

Alteration of spire, from Middle English spyre, spier, spir, from Old English spīr (“stalk of a plant, shoot, blade”). More at spire.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.