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Truncheon vs Quarterstaff - What's the difference?

truncheon | quarterstaff | Related terms |

Truncheon is a related term of quarterstaff.


As nouns the difference between truncheon and quarterstaff

is that truncheon is (label) a fragment or piece broken off from something, especially a broken-off piece of a spear or lance while 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 verb truncheon

is to strike with a truncheon.

truncheon

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • (label) A fragment or piece broken off from something, especially a broken-off piece of a spear or lance.
  • *, Bk.VII:
  • *:Helpe me that thys truncheoune were oute of my syde, for hit stykith so sore that hit nyghe sleyth me.
  • *1596 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , IV.3:
  • *:Therewith asunder in the midst it brast, / And in his hand nought but the troncheon left.
  • (label) The shaft of a spear.
  • A short staff, a club; a cudgel.
  • *(Edmund Spenser) (c.1552–1599)
  • *:With his truncheon he so rudely struck.
  • *1786 , Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons , p.52:
  • *:One is a large ball of iron, fastened with three chains to a strong truncheon or staff of about two feet long; the other is of mixed metal, in the form of a channelled melon, fastened also to a staff by a triple chain; these balls weigh eight pounds.
  • A baton, or military staff of command, now especially the stick carried by a police officer.
  • *1604 , William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure , Act II, Scene II, l.60:
  • *:Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword / The marshal's truncheon , nor the judge's robe / Become them with one half so good a grace / As mercy does.
  • (label) A stout stem, as of a tree, with the branches lopped off, to produce rapid growth.
  • :(Gardner)
  • (label) A penis.

    • See also

    * bludgeon

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To strike with a truncheon.
    • (Shakespeare)

    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