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LATIN · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

hasta.

spear/lance/javelin; spear stuck in ground for public auction/centumviral court;

5 characters2 syllables approx.Latina language

Meaning & usage

noun[ˈhas.ta]Classical-Latin[ˈas.ta]
  1. a spear, lance, pike, carried by soldiers and used for thrusting

    declension-1 · feminine
    Petere aliquem hastā.
Where this word comes from

Disputed. Michiel de Vaan suggests a possible Proto-Italic form Proto-Italic *hastā-. It is also conjectured to be from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰasto- or *ǵʰasdʰo- (“branch ~ spear, sharp spine”) (see below for Indo-European cognates), but the phonetics are problematic. Likely of ultimately non-Indo-European substrate origin. Cognates include Irish gad (“withe”), Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐌶𐌳𐍃 (gazds, “spine, aculeus”) and Old Norse gaddr (“spear, goad”) (loaned into English as gad); the Celtic and Germanic forms point to a PIE pre-form *ǵʰasdʰo-. A relationship with Sanskrit हस्त (hasta, “hand”) (see hir) is unlikely. A relationship with Albanian heshtë, ushtë and shtijë (all meaning “spear”) is uncertain. Also compared to Umbrian hostatu (acc.pl.m.), hostatir (dat.pl.m), of unknown meaning, but the root vowel /o/ does not match the Latin /a/.

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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.