Meaning of glaive | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A light lance with a long, sharp-pointed head.
   historical, obsolete
2. A weapon consisting of a pole with a large blade fixed on the end, the edge of which is on the outside curve.
   historical
3. A sword, particularly a broadsword.
   archaic, broadly, poetic

Equivalents

Examples

“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.”

“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.”

“With the spear comes the use⟳ of the shield; yet the San Cristoval spearmen use⟳ no such defence, but turn⟳ off spears thrown at them with long curved glaives, and the shields in use⟳ in Florida are not made in that island.”

“At that moment Ilane swung the bladed staff—glaive, Kel remembered as it swung, they called it a glaive—in a wide side cut⟳, slicing one pirate across the chest.”

“[T]he glaiue which he did wield / He gan forthwith t'auale, and way vnto me yield⟳.”

“Wherefore do you ſo ill tranſlate yourſelf, / Out of the ſpeech of peace, that bears ſuch grace, / Into the harſh and boiſt'rous tongue of war? / Turning your books to glaives, your ink to blood, / Your pens to lances, and your tongue divine / To a loud trumpet, and a point⟳ of war?”

“Juſtice were cruel weakly to relent; / From Mercy’s Self ſhe got her ſacred Glaive: / Grace be to thoſe who can, and will, repent; / But Penance long, and dreary, to the Slave, / Who muſt in Floods of Fire his groſs ſoul Spirit lave.”

“Thus furth he drew his truſty glaive, / While thouſands all arround, / Drawn frae their ſheaths glanſt in the ſun, / And loud the bougills ſound.”

“Yea, that same awful angel with the glaive / Which in disparadising orbit swept / Lintel and pilaster and architrave”

CEFR level