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• lance
  lance

  noun

  a long wooden shaft with a pointed metal head, used as a weapon by knights and cavalry soldiers in charging.
• Lance
  Lance

  noun

  a male given name.

lance

¹ American  

[lans, lahns] / læns, lɑns /

noun

1. a long wooden shaft with a pointed metal head, used as a weapon by knights and cavalry soldiers in charging.

2. a cavalry soldier armed with such a weapon; lancer.

3. an implement resembling the weapon, as a spear for killing a harpooned whale.

4. Military. Lance, a U.S. Army surface-to-surface rocket with a range of 47 miles (75 km) and capable of carrying a tactical nuclear warhead.

5. a lancet.

6. oxygen lance.

7. Machinery.

   1. a tube having a nozzle for cleaning furnace walls and other inaccessible surfaces with air, water, or steam.

   2. a pipe for directing oxygen onto a heated metal object in order to burn a hole in it, the lance also being consumed so as to add to the heat.

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verb (used with object)

• lances,
  present (3rd person singular)
• lanced,
  past participle,  past
• lancing
  present participle

1. to open with or as if with a lancet.

2. to pierce with a lance.

3. to cut through (concrete or the like) with an oxygen lance.

lance ² American  

[lans, lahns] / læns, lɑns /

noun

1. sand lance.

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Lance ³ American  

[lans] / læns /

noun

1. a male given name.

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lance British  

/ lɑːns /

noun

1. a long weapon with a pointed head used by horsemen to unhorse or injure an opponent

2. a similar weapon used for hunting, whaling, etc

3. surgery another name for lancet

4. the sand lance See sand eel

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verb

1. to pierce (an abscess or boil) with a lancet to drain off pus

2. to pierce with or as if with a lance

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• lancelike
  adjective
• unlanced
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Participles

• lancing
  present
• lanced
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• lance
  simple
• lances
  simple
• have lanced
  perfect
• has lanced
  perfect
• am lancing
  progressive
• are lancing
  progressive
• is lancing
  progressive
• have been lancing
  perfect progressive
• has been lancing
  perfect progressive

Past

• lanced
  simple
• had lanced
  perfect
• was lancing
  progressive
• were lancing
  progressive
• had been lancing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will lance
  simple
• will have lanced
  perfect
• will be lancing
  progressive
• will have been lancing
  perfect progressive

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Etymology

Origin of lance¹

First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English launce, lance, from Old French lance, from Latin lancea (perhaps from Celtic)

Origin of lance²

First recorded in 1620–30; perhaps special use of lance ¹, from its shape

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Explanation

A warrior during the Middle Ages most often carried a lance, or a long, pointed spear, as a weapon. Throughout history, soldiers mounted on horseback have often carried some variation of a lance — something long and sharp for jabbing at enemy warriors. Lances were carried as far back as ancient Roman armies and as recently as Plains Indians after they were introduced to horses in the eighteenth century. The Latin root word, lancea , means "light spear" or "Spanish spear."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

lance Lance lances lanced lancing

The scene that best defines the story’s idealism happens long before Dunk gets clunked in the head or skewered by a lance.

From Salon ● Feb. 23, 2026

Saint George is widely known as Christianity's most famous dragon slayer and is commonly depicted as a warrior holding a lance.

From Science Daily ● Feb. 2, 2026

Two opposing galaxies play the role of knights, with one galaxy pointing a lance made of pure radiation right at the other!

From Space Scoop ● May 21, 2025

He enlisted in May 2022 and was promoted to lance corporal in August 2024.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 17, 2025

He pressed a button, and a lance of flame jetted toward the tossing, swaying zeppelin.

From "The Amber Spyglass" by Philip Pullman

Holmes unexpectedly opened her home to co-directors Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim in the 34 days before heading to a Texas prison in a bid to tell her story in her own words.

From Barron's ● Oct. 18, 2026

Sitting just inches apart around a San Diego beach rental’s dinner table in Fielder and co-director Lance Oppenheim’s magnificent new documentary, “You Can See Everything,” Fielder and Holmes look decidedly comfortable with one another.

From Salon ● Oct. 17, 2026

“Help me make sense of what I just experienced,” he has been asking audiences; his film, which he stars in and co-directed with Lance Oppenheim, presents more questions than it answers.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026

He has accused the Oscar-winning filmmaker, whose documentaries have tackled Scientology, Enron, Lance Armstrong and Elizabeth Holmes, of having “zero integrity” and dismissed his movies as “boring af.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2026

Then I know Matt and Lance and Corey must be running away.

From "The Truth as Told by Mason Buttle" by Leslie Connor

Farther away, at the Glogow smelter, two workers in protective suits, armed with long lances, open huge furnaces where the ore is melted.

From Barron's ● Apr. 3, 2026

Unlike his two friends, Mr. Spielberg didn’t want to tilt lances at the studios, make great art or change the world.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 13, 2026

Tournaments began as rougher, less “gentlemanly” affairs in which competitors rode against each other with lances and then proceeded to fight with close-quarters weapons ahorse or on foot.

From Salon ● Aug. 10, 2024

Sunlight lances through the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Silver Lake Boulevard.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 29, 2024

Wearing cotton armor and wooden helmets, brandishing lances, hatchets, and maces, and carrying great painted litters with effigies of their gods, the two militias marched on Mutal.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann

They fell often, lanced their hands on spiked trees, dragged boots filled with mud and at times collapsed from exhaustion.

From Seattle Times ● May 22, 2023

She later confessed that the stress of stardom caused her to develop a "boil on the bum" that had to be lanced hours before performing live on Dutch TV.

From BBC ● Jan. 27, 2022

That happened in the late 1990s at a league meeting in Atlanta, when a massive model of a renovated Coliseum tumbled off a table and lanced the back of Goodell’s ankle.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 12, 2021

I saw a better doctor the day I arrived in Whitehorse; gently holding my head with one hand, she lanced the infection.

From The Guardian ● Oct. 30, 2019

Pain lanced through him, but Jon would not cry out.

From "A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin

It received some boos at its first press screening, but got heady reviews, with Screen Daily calling it a “a devouring and restless experience: a creative surge that’s like the lancing of a boil.”

From New York Times ● Sep. 9, 2017

The lyric is addressed to someone he calls "a doctor specialising in lancing boils".

From BBC ● Mar. 27, 2017

Groves continued pushing the pace, lancing fast, accurate right hands over Froch’s low left hand; never had the champ been lit up like this.

From The Guardian ● Mar. 23, 2017

Hailee Steinfeld stars as Nadine, a beguiling blend of charisma, lancing intelligence, and hostile insecurity.

From Slate ● Nov. 18, 2016

Mr. Milgrom was lancing a boil on his wife’s leg.

From "Milkweed" by Jerry Spinelli

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