Word.ws English Dictionary

xyston

xyston noun: a type of long thrusting lance, used in ancient Greece.

Noun

xyston (plural xystons or xysta)

  1. A type of long thrusting lance, used in ancient Greece.
    • The Companions, like the Thessalian cavalry, were a well-mounted force armed with cuirass and the short thrusting spear (xyston) for close combat.2004, J. F. C. Fuller, The Generalship of Alexander the Great, page 47

Forms of xyston

pluralxystons
pluralxysta

Origin of xyston

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ξυστόν (xustón, “spear, javelin”), of unknown origin. Potentially from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰasto- or *ǵʰasdʰo- (“branch ~ spear, sharp spine”) (whence also gad, goad, and yard), but this is likely a substrate word in view of the various irregularities.

Questions about xyston

What does xyston mean?
Xyston means a type of long thrusting lance, used in ancient Greece.
What part of speech is xyston?
Xyston is a noun.
What is the plural of xyston?
The plural of xyston is xystons.

Words near xyston in the dictionary

  1. xysters
  2. xysti
  3. xystodesmid
  4. xystodesmids
  5. xystoi
  6. xyston
  7. xystons
  8. xystos
  9. xysts
  10. xystum
  11. xystus

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: xyston (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: “xyston.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/xyston. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.