glaives

Noun

glaive (plural glaives)

1. (historical, obsolete) A light lance with a long, sharp-pointed head.
   • The lance, or glaive as it is often called, of the eleventh and twelfth centuries was quite straight and smooth; a vamplate was added in the fourteenth, small at first but larger later, for the protection of the right arm.1919, R[obert] Coltman Clephan, chapter II, in The Tournament: Its Periods and Phases, London: Methuen & Co., […], →OCLC, page 18
2. (historical) A weapon consisting of a pole with a large blade fixed on the end, the edge of which is on the outside curve.
   • The Welch Glaive is a kind of bill, ſometimes reckoned among the pole axes. They were formerly much in uſe. [...] In the Britiſh Muſeum there is an entry of a warrant, granted to Nicholas Spicer, authoriſing him to impreſs ſmiths for making two thouſand Welch bills or glaives.1786, Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons, […], London: […] S. Hooper […], →OCLC, page 52
3. (archaic, broadly, poetic) A sword, particularly a broadsword.
   • [T]he glaiue which he did wield / He gan forthwith t'auale, and way vnto me yield.1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, stanza 19, page 144