lance
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A weapon of war, made up of a long shaft or handle and a steel blade or head.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
lansIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈlæns
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A weapon of war, consisting of a long shaft or handle and a steel blade or head; a spear carried by horsemen.
A wooden spear, sometimes hollow, used in jousting or tilting, designed to shatter on impact with the opposing knight's armour.
fishing
A spear or harpoon used by whalers and fishermen.
A diminutive of the male given name Lancelot.
verb
Move quickly, as if by cutting one's way
Move suddenly and quickly
informal
To steal or swipe
Pierce with a lance, as in a knights' fight
To pierce with a lance, or with any similar weapon.
Open by piercing with a lancet
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- General and technical use
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A weapon of war, consisting of a long shaft or handle and a steel blade or head; a spear carried by horsemen.
Used this way, lance is a reasonably familiar word with a faintly unfavourable edge. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use lance
- “The knight carried a long lance, ready for the jousting tournament.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
A cavalryman armed with a lance.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
An enlisted man in the marine corps ranking above a private first class and below a corporal.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
An acutely pointed Gothic arch, like a lance.
A leaf shaped like a lance head.
An acutely pointed Gothic arch, like a lance.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.