Word.ws English Dictionary

launce

/lɑːns/

launce noun: sand eel, sand lance, fish of the family Ammodytidae. Also the obsolete form of lance.

Noun (1)

launce (plural launces)

  1. sand eel, sand lance, fish of the family Ammodytidae

Noun (2)

launce (plural launces)

  1. (obsolete) A balance.
    • Fortune all in equall launce doth sway.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 4

Also used as

launce is also the obsolete form of lance.

Forms of launce

Noun
plurallaunces
Verb
third-person singular presentlaunces
present participlelauncing
past participlelaunced
pastlaunced

Origin of launce

See lance.

From Italian lance, Latin lanx, lancis (“plate, scale of a balance”); compare balance.

Words that rhyme with launce

4 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about launce

What does launce mean?
Launce means sand eel, sand lance, fish of the family Ammodytidae.
What part of speech is launce?
Launce is a noun.
How do you pronounce launce?
Launce is pronounced /lɑːns/.
What is the plural of launce?
The plural of launce is launces.

Words near launce in the dictionary

  1. Laumanns
  2. laumonite
  3. laumontite
  4. laumontites
  5. launayite
  6. launce
  7. launced
  8. launcegaye
  9. launcegayes
  10. Launcelot
  11. launces

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: launce (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-launce.wav.

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