launce
English
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /lɑːns/, /lɔːns/
Audio (UK) (file) - Rhymes: -ɑːns, -ɔːns
Etymology 1
See lance.
Noun
launce (plural launces)
- Obsolete form of lance.
- sand eel, sand lance, fish of the family Ammodytidae
Translations
sand lance — see sand lance
Verb
launce (third-person singular simple present launces, present participle launcing, simple past and past participle launced)
- Obsolete form of lance.
Etymology 2
From Italian lance, Latin lanx, lancis (“plate, scale of a balance”); compare balance.
Noun
launce (plural launces)
- (obsolete) A balance.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938, stanza 4:
- Fortune all in equall launce doth sway.
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Anagrams
- Lucena, auncel, auncle, cuneal, lacune, unlace
Middle English
Etymology 1
From Old French lance, from Latin lancea.
Alternative forms
- lance, launs, launse, lawnce, lawnse
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈlau̯ns(ə)/, /ˈlans(ə)/
Noun
launce (plural launces)
- A lance (long spear).
- A javelin (throwing spear).
- (rare) A lancer; someone armed with a lance.
- (figurative, rare) That which is long and pointed.
Related terms
- launcele
- launcen
- launcet
- launcegay
Descendants
- English: lance, launce
- Scots: lance
References
- “launce, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
Noun
launce
- Alternative form of launcen (“to push forwards”)