different between poignard vs poniard

English

Noun

poignard (plural poignards)

1. Alternative form of poniard
   • 1978, Michael Moorcock, Gloriana; or, The Unfulfill'd Queen, p. 1:

     Within, the palace is rarely still; there is a coming and going of great aristocrats in their brocades, silks and velvets, their chains of gold and silver, their filigree poignards, their ivory farthingales, cloaks and trains rippling behind them, sometimes carried by little boys and girls in such a weight of cloth it seems they can barely walk.

French

Etymology

From an alteration of Old French poignal, poignel, from a Vulgar Latin *p?gn?lis, p?gn?le(m), from Latin pugnus (“fist”) (whence French poing), in the manner of manu?lis. Compare Spanish puñal, Portuguese punhal, Occitan punhal, Catalan punyal, Italian pugnale.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pwa.?a?/
• Rhymes: -a?

Noun

poignard m (plural poignards)

1. dagger

Related terms

• poignarder

Descendants

• ? English: poniard

Further reading

• “poignard” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

English

Alternative forms

• poignard, poinard, poynard, punierd

Etymology

Borrowed from French poignard, from poing (“fist”), from Old French, from Latin p?gnus (“fist”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pew?-.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?p?nj?d/, /?p?nj??d/

Noun

poniard (plural poniards)

1. (now chiefly historical) A dagger typically having a slender square or triangular blade. [from 16th c.]
   • c. 1601, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, V.1:

     The sir King ha's wag'd with him six Barbary horses, / against the which he impon'd as I take it, sixe French / Rapiers and Poniards, with their assignes, as Girdle, / Hangers or so […].

   • 1751, Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, vol. IV, ch. 101:

     One of the tragic authors, finding himself assaulted in the dark, had, by way of poinard, employed upon his adversary's throat a knife which lay upon the table, for the convenience of cutting cheese […] .

   • 1824, James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner:

     On this occasion I said nothing, but concealing his poniard in my clothes, I hasted up the mountain, determined to execute my purpose […].

Translations

Verb

poniard (third-person singular simple present poniards, present participle poniarding, simple past and past participle poniarded)

1. To stab with a poniard.
   • 1764, Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto, I:

     Manfred […] would have poignarded the peasant in their arms.

Related terms

• impugn
• pugilism
• pugnacious
• repugn (repugnant)

References

• “poniard”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 2000, ?ISBN
• “poniard” in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• "poniard" in WordNet 2.0, Princeton University, 2003.

Anagrams

• padroni, pandori, paridon, poinard