Word.ws English Dictionary

gavelock

gavelock noun: a spear or dart.

Noun

gavelock (plural gavelocks)

  1. (obsolete, rare) A spear or dart.
  2. (Scotland, obsolete) An iron crowbar.

Forms of gavelock

pluralgavelocks

Origin of gavelock

From Middle English gavelock, from Old English gafeluc (“spear, javelin”), from gafol (“fork”) + -uc (diminutive suffix). Compare Old Norse gaflak, Icelandic gaflok, Old French gavelot, glavelot, French javelot, Irish gabhal (“fork”), Welsh gaflach (“fork, dart”). More at gaff, gaffle and javelin.

Questions about gavelock

What does gavelock mean?
Gavelock means a spear or dart.
What part of speech is gavelock?
Gavelock is a noun.
What is the plural of gavelock?
The plural of gavelock is gavelocks.

Words near gavelock in the dictionary

  1. gavelling
  2. gavelling out
  3. gavelling to order
  4. gavelman
  5. gavelmen
  6. gavelock
  7. gavelocks
  8. gavels
  9. gavels out
  10. gavels to order
  11. Gavenny

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gavelock (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “gavelock.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gavelock. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.