speal2t

An obsolete variant of spall2. speal-bone (spēl'bon), n. The shoulder-blade. Reading the speal-bone, scapulimancy; divination by means of a shoulder-blade. E. B. Tylor, Prim. Cult., I. 125. Compare spatulamancy . spean (spen), n. [ 5804 It hath also four speanes to her paps. Top sell , Four-footed Beasts, p. 38. (Hall i well.) spearl (sper), n. [ spere , pl. speres , speren , spere = OS. sper = OFries. sper , spiri = MD. spere , D. speer = MLG. sper , spere = OHG. MHG. sper , G. speer (> OF. espier ) = Icel. spjör , pl., = Dan. spær , a spear (the L. spar us, a small mi ile weapon, dart, hunting-spear, is prob. spar1 . In def. 7 prob. confused with spire1.] 1. A weapon consisting of a penetrating head attached to a long shaft of wood, designed to be thrust by or launched from the hand at an enemy or at game. Spears have been used as warlike weapons from the earliest times, and were the principal reliance of many ancient armies, as those of the Greeks, while in others they were used coördinately with the bow and the sword. They are represented by the bayonet in modern armies, though some use is still made of spears, of which javelins and lances are lighter, and pikes heavier, forms. Compare cuts under bayonet and pike . Hunting-spears, 15th or 16th century. oon myght here the Whan the i were ouer, the i smyten in a-monge hem so vigorously that cra inge of speres half a myle longe. Merlin (E. E. T. Š.), ii. 155. Isa. ii. 4. They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. 2. A man armed with a spear; a spearman. Earl Doorm Struck with a knife's haft hard against the board, And call'd for flesh and wine to feed his spears . Tennyson, Geraint. 3. A sharp-pointed instrument with barbed tines, generally three or four, used for stabbing fish and other animals; a fish-gig.-4. An instrument like or suggestive of an actual spear, as some articles of domestic or mechanical use, one of the long pieces fixed transversely to the beam or body of chevaux-de-frise, chevaux-de-frise, in some parts of England a bee's sting, etc.-5. One of the pieces of timber which together form the main rod of the Cornish pumping-engine.-6. The feather of a horse. Also called the streak of the spear. It is a mark in the neck or near the shoulder of some barbs, which is reckoned a sure sign of a good horse. 7. A spire: now used only of the stalks of gra es: as, a spear of wheat. Tell me the motes, dust, sands, and speares Of corn, when Summer shakes his eares. Herrick, To Find God. The speare or steeple of which churche was fired by lightening. Lambarde , Perambulation (1596), p. 287. ( Hall i well . ) Holy spear. Same as holy lance. See lancel. - Spear pyrites, a variety of marcasite. - Spear side, occasionally spear half, a phrase sometimes used to denote the male line of a family, in contradistinction to distaff or spindle side (or half ), the female line. See distaff side, under distaff. A King who by the spindle-side sprang from both Wil. liam and Cerdic, but who by the spear - side had nothing to do with either. IMG:content-1667.png:[blocks in formation] B. Jonson, Cat i line, ii. spearl (sper), v. [ The [Australian] youngsters generally celebrated the birth of a lamb by spearing it. C. Reade , Never too Late to Mend, li. The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow spear'd by the shrike. Tennyson, Maud, iv. 4. II. in trans. To shoot into a long stem; germinate, as barley. See spire1 . The single blade [of wheat] spears first into three, then into five or more side-shoots. Science, VII. 174. spear2+ (sper), v. An obsolete form of speer1 . spear-billed (spēr'bild), a . Having a long, straight, and sharp bill, beak, or rostrum: as, the spear - billed grebes of the genus Achmo phorus. See cut under Æchmophorus. Coues . spear-dog (spēr'dog), n. The common piked dog-fish, Squalus acanthi as or Acanthi as vulgar is , [Local, Eng.]