javelin

/ˈd͡ʒæv.(ə.)lɪn/

Etymology

From Middle English chafeveleyn, gavelong, from Old French javelline, diminutive of javelot, diminutive of *javel, from Vulgar Latin *gabalus, from Gaulish gabulum (compare Old Irish gabul (“fork”), Welsh gafl), from Proto-Celtic *gablā (“fork, forked branch”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰeh₁bʰ-. The Old French term was also borrowed into Middle Low German as gaveline, and into Middle High German as gabilot. Cognate with gavelock, gaffle.

javelin means A light spear thrown with the hand and used as a weapon. Lexicurio rates it Distinctive — a strength score of 65 out of 100.

javelin is pronounced /ˈd͡ʒæv.(ə.)lɪn/.

noun

A light spear thrown with the hand and used as a weapon.“And when Phinehas the sonne of Eleazar, the sonne of Aaron the Priest saw it, hee rose vp from amongst the Congregation, and tooke a iauelin in his hand. And he went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them thorow, the man of Israel, and the woman, thorow her belly: So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel.”
A metal-tipped spear thrown for distance in an athletic field event.“I managed to medal in the javelin throw.”
A javelinfish (Coelorinchus australis).

verb

To pierce with a javelin.“Furrowing a giant oak, and javelining / With darted spikes and splinters of the wood”
To throw like a javelin.“He will have questions of all sorts javelined at him from the benches on both sides, from above the gangway and from below it.”
To fall like a javelin.“For answer the ship righted as she rolled upon another great swell, leaned as far the other side, and crashed, bows first, into a cleft rock under water which held her as in a vise while her jib boom flew up in splinters, and her foretopgallant and royal mast, with yards and gear and sails, tore loose aloft and javelined down until brought up short by the involved rigging.”