different between spear vs hypaspist

English

Etymology

From Middle English spere, sperre, spear, from Old English spere, from Proto-Germanic *speru (compare West Frisian spear, Dutch speer, German Speer, Old Norse spj?r), related to *sparrô (compare Middle Dutch sparre (“rafter”), Old Norse sparri (“spar, rafter”), sperra (“rafter, beam”)), from Proto-Indo-European *sperH- (compare Latin sparus (“short spear”), Albanian ferrë (“thorn, thornbush”)). See park.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /sp???(?)/
• (Canada, US) IPA^(key): /sp??/
• Rhymes: -??(?)

Noun

spear (plural spears)

1. A long stick with a sharp tip used as a weapon for throwing or thrusting, or anything used to make a thrusting motion.
2. (now chiefly historical) 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 […].

3. A lance with barbed prongs, used by fishermen to retrieve fish.
4. (ice hockey) An illegal maneuver using the end of a hockey stick to strike into another hockey player.
5. (wrestling) In professional wrestling, a running tackle in which the wrestler's shoulder is driven into the opponent's midsection.
6. A shoot, as of grass; a spire.
7. The feather of a horse.
8. The rod to which the bucket, or plunger, of a pump is attached; a pump rod.
9. A long, thin strip from a vegetable.

   asparagus and broccoli spears

Derived terms

Translations

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

spear (third-person singular simple present spears, present participle spearing, simple past and past participle speared)

1. (transitive) To pierce with a spear.
2. (transitive, by extension) 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.
   • 2003, Stan Fischler, Shirley Fischler, Who's who in Hockey

     Former teammate Derek Sanderson recalls that Maki hit Ted from behind as Green was clearing the puck from the Boston zone. Green turned to knock Maki down, but Maki speared him as he rose from the ice.

3. (gridiron football) To tackle an opponent by ramming into them with one's helmet.
4. (intransitive) To shoot into a long stem, as some plants do.

Translations

Adjective

spear (not comparable)

1. Male.

   a spear counterpart

   • 2018, A Very English Scandal (TV series) (episode 1)

     When I was young, I was so desperate I'd go looking on the spear side.

2. Pertaining to male family members.

   the spear side of the family

Antonyms

• distaff

Anagrams

• Asper, Earps, Pears, Peras, RESPA, Rapes, Spera, apers, apres, après, aprés, as per, asper, pares, parse, pears, prase, presa, præs., rapes, reaps, sarpe, spare

Middle English

Noun

spear

1. Alternative form of spere (“spear”)

West Frisian

Etymology

From Old Frisian spere, spiri, from Proto-Germanic *speru.

Noun

spear c (plural spearen, diminutive spearke)

1. spear

Further reading

• “spear”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011

English

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ?????????? (hupaspist?s, “shield bearer”), from ??? (hupó, “under”) + ????? (aspís, “shield”) + -??? (-t?s, “suffix forming agent noun”).

Noun

hypaspist (plural hypaspists or hypaspistai)

1. (historical, military, Ancient Greece) A type of lightly armoured foot soldier equipped with an aspis (shield) and spear.
   • 1900, John Bagnell Bury, A History of Greece: To the Death of Alexander the Great, Cambridge University Press, page 777,

     Meanwhile Darius had loosed his scythed cars, to whirl destruction into the ranks of the Companions and the hypaspists. But the archers and the Agrian spear-throwers received them with showers of spears and arrows; some of these active hillsmen seized the reins of the horses and pulled the riders from their seats, while the hypaspists, swiftly and undismayed, opened their ranks, and the terrible chariots rattled harmless down the intervals.

   • 1988 [CUP], A. B. Bosworth, Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great, Cambridge University Press (Canto), 1993, page 259,

     The other major component of the Macedonian infantry was the corps of hypaspists. This force had evolved from the old bodyguard of the Macedonian kings and its nucleus, the agema, still acted as Alexander's guard when he fought on foot. The rest of the hypaspists were organised in chiliarchies (units of 1,000), perhaps three in number.

   • 2013, Michael Taylor, Antiochus the Great, Pen & Sword Books (Pen & Sword Military), unnumbered page,

     Perhaps fearful of blame in the event of failure, Lagoras asked that two of the King's favourites join the assault, Theodotus the Aetolian and Dionysius, the commander of the hypaspists, an elite subset of the Silver Shields.

Usage notes

• The role and status of hypaspists changed over time:
  • Initially, their role was that of shield bearer or squire.
  • By the time of the historian Herodotus (5thC BCE), they had become high-status soldiers.
  • Under Philip II of Macedon (4thC BCE), the hypaspists were considered an elite unit and were used to protect the flanks of the phalanx of phalangites, with their own flanks being protected by cavalry.
  • Under Alexander the Great (4thC BCE), a special unit of hypaspists, recruited from the nobility, became the infantry component of the agema (the king's personal bodyguard).
  • Among the Diadochi states of the Hellenistic period, hypaspists continued in name in the Seleucid, Ptolemaic and Antigonid armies, but with the roles of royal bodyguard and military administrator.
  • In Macedonia, the title went into disuse; however, in terms of status, equipment and role, the peltast became virtually identical to what the hypaspist had been under Philip.

See also

• hoplite
• peltast
• phalangite

Further reading

• Agema on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• 2015 November, Manousos Kambouros, The Hypaspist Corps: One Identity, Three Units, and Many Functions, Ancient Warfare, Issue IX.5.