glaive

/ɡleɪv/

Etymology

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”).

glaive means A light lance with a long, sharp-pointed head. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.

Why this word is great

GLAIVE — [Noun] A historical polearm consisting of a single-edged blade mounted on the end of a pole, with its cutting edge on the convex side. From Middle English *gleyve* ("lance"), from Old French *glaive* ("lance; sword"), from Late Latin *glavus*, a word of uncertain origin but likely a crossing of Latin *gladius* ("sword") with *clāva* ("club") or a borrowing from a Celtic source like Old Irish *claideb* ("sword"), all ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kelh₂- ("to beat, break"). Unlike a halberd—a pragmatic assembly of axe, spike, and hook for disassembling armor—or a broadsword—a double-edged companion for the intimate crush of the melee—the glaive is a weapon of pure, extended arc. It is the silvered flash of its blade catching the low sun in a practiced swing, the hollow *thwick* as it parts tall grass in a farmer's testing stroke, and the terrible, elegant parabola that keeps the chaos of flesh at bay. It speaks not of intricate duels, but of the necessary, sweeping distance one must keep from the world.

noun

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.”