pilum
/ˈpaɪləm/
pilum noun: a Roman military javelin.
Noun
- A Roman military javelin.
- Besides a lighter spear, the Roman legionary grasped in his right hand the formidable pilum, a ponderous javelin whose utmost length was about six feet and which was terminated by a massy triangular point of steel of about eighteen inches.1776, Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Penguin 2000, page 21
- Verica plucked a pilum from the hands of the nearest legionary – the soldier didn't react – and handed it to me.2011, Ben Aaronovitch, Rivers of London, Gollancz 2011, page 371
- The columella on the surface of a pollen grain.
Forms of pilum
| plural | pila |
|---|---|
| plural | pilums |
Origin of pilum
Borrowed from Latin pilum. Doublet of pile.
Words that rhyme with pilum
Questions about pilum
- What does pilum mean?
- Pilum means a Roman military javelin.
- What part of speech is pilum?
- Pilum is a noun.
- How do you pronounce pilum?
- Pilum is pronounced /ˈpaɪləm/.
- What is the plural of pilum?
- The plural of pilum is pila.
Words near pilum in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: pilum (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.
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Cite this entry: “pilum.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pilum. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.