lance | Search Online Etymology Dictionary

31 entries found.

late 13c. (late 12c. as a surname), from Old French lance "spear, lance, lance-length" (12c.), from Latin lancea "light spear, Spanish lance" (Italian lancia, Spanish lanza), a word said by Varro to be of Spanish origin, hence possibly from Celt-Iberian. The French word spread generally into the Germanic languages: German Lanze, Middle Dutch lanse, Dutch lans, Danish landse.

Lance corporal "private soldier performing the duties of a corporal" (1786) is a folk-etymology or partial nativizing of obsolete lancepesade "officer of lowest rank" (1570s), which is an Englishing of Old Italian lancia spezzata "old soldier," literally "broken lance."

lance (v.)

"to pierce with a lance," c. 1300, from Old French lancier "to throw forward, hurl, dash; attack with a lance," from Late Latin lanceare "wield a lance; pierce with a lance," from lancea (see lance (n.)). The surgical sense (properly with reference to a lancet) is from late 15c. Related: Lanced; lancing.

free-lance (n.)

also freelance, "medieval mercenary warrior," 1820 ("Ivanhoe"), from free (adj.) + lance (n.); apparently a coinage of Sir Walter Scott's. The description of them resembles that of the Italian condottieri. Figurative sense is from 1864; specifically of journalism by 1882.

lancet (n.)

"small, sharp surgical instrument," late 14c., launcet, from Old French lancette "small lance" (12c.), diminutive of lance (see lance (n.)).

lanceolate (adj.)

"shaped like a lance-head," 1751, from Late Latin lanceolatus "armed with a little lance," from Latin lanceola, diminutive of lancea (see lance (n.)).

lancer (n.)

1580s, "soldier armed with a lance," from French lancier "soldier, knight armed with a lance," from Old French lance (see lance (n.)).

elan (n.)

"vivacity," 1877, from French élan (16c.), "spring, bound, impetus," noun derived from élancer "to shoot, incite" (trans.); "rush forward, dart" (intrans.), from Old French elancer, from e- "out" (see ex-) + lancer "to throw," originally "to throw a lance," from Late Latin lanceare, from Latin lancea (see lance (n.)).

launch (v.)

c. 1300, "to rush, plunge, leap, start forth; to be set into sudden motion," from Old North French lancher, Old French lancier "to fling, hurl, throw, cast," from Late Latin lanceare "wield a lance," from Latin lancea "light spear" (see lance (n.)).

Meaning "to throw, hurl, let fly" is from mid-14c. Sense of "set (a boat) afloat" first recorded c. 1400, from notion of throwing it out on the water; generalized by 1600 to any sort of beginning. Related: Launched; launching.

fer de lance (n.)

large venomous snake of American tropics, 1817, from French, "lance-head," literally "iron of a lance." So called for its shape.

kopeck (n.)

coin worth one-hundredth part of a ruble, from Russian kopeika, from kop'e "lance" (cognate with Greek kopis "chopper, cleaver;" see hatchet (n.)); so called because the coin showed the czar with lance in hand.

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