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Quarterstaff vs Spear - What's the difference?

quarterstaff | spear |

As a noun quarterstaff

is a wooden staff of an approximate length between 2 and 25 meters, sometimes tipped with iron, used as a weapon in rural england during the early modern period.

As a proper noun spear is

.

quarterstaff

English

(wikipedia quarterstaff)

Alternative forms

*quarter-staff *quarter staff

Noun

(en-noun)
  • A wooden staff of an approximate length between 2 and 2.5 meters, sometimes tipped with iron, used as a weapon in rural England during the Early Modern period.
  • * 1883 , Howard Pyle, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood :
    • First, several couples stood forth at quarterstaff , and so shrewd were they at the game, and so quickly did they give stroke and parry, that
  • Fighting or exercise with the quarterstaff.
    • He was very adept at quarterstaff .

    Usage notes

    An attestation from 1590 of a quarter Ashe staffe'' shows that the "quarter" was an apposition and could still be detached (Richard Harvey, ''Plaine Perceuall the peace-maker of England , cited after the OED). Joseph Swetnam (1615) uses "quarterstaff" in the same sense in which George Silver (1599) had used "short staff", viz. for the staff between about 2 and 2.5 meters in length, as opposed to the "long staff" of a length exceeding 3 meters. Contemporary use of the word disappears during the 18th century, and beginning with 19th-century Romanticism the word is mostly limited to antiquarian or historical usage.

    Synonyms

    * (l) (a Japanese quarterstaff) *short staff

    spear

    English

    (wikipedia spear)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A long stick with a sharp tip used as a weapon for throwing or thrusting, or anything used to make a thrusting motion.
  • A soldier armed with such a weapon; a spearman.
  • * 2011 , Thomas Penn, Winter King , Penguin 2012, p. 187:
    • Two of the four spears came directly from Lady Margaret's staff. One was her great-nephew Maurice St John […].
  • A sharp tool used by fishermen to retrieve fish.
  • (ice hockey) an illegal maneuver using the end of a hockey stick to strike into another hockey player.
  • (wrestling) a running tackle on an opponent performed in professional wrestling.
  • A spearman.
    • (Sir Walter Scott)
  • A shoot, as of grass; a spire.
  • The feather of a horse.
  • The rod to which the bucket, or plunger, of a pump is attached; a pump rod.
  • A long, thin strip from a vegetable.
    • asparagus and broccoli spears

    Derived terms

    * spearbush * spear gun * spearhead * spearmint * spear thrower * spear tackle * spearwood

    See also

    * assegai, assagai, assagaie, assagay, assegay, azagaia, hassagay, hassaguay, zagaie, zagaye * atlatl * bayonet * harpoon * javelin * joust * lance * pike * spit, used to grill food on fire * woomera

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To penetrate or strike with, or as if with, any long narrow object. To make a thrusting motion that catches an object on the tip of a long device.
  • To shoot into a long stem, as some plants do.
    • (Mortimer)

    Anagrams

    * ----