leister

American  

[lee-ster] / ˈli stər /

noun

1. a spearlike implement having three or more prongs, for use in spearing fish.

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verb (used with object)

1. to spear (fish) with a leister.

leister British  

/ ˈliːstə /

noun

1. a spear with three or more prongs for spearing fish, esp salmon

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verb

1. (tr) to spear (a fish) with a leister

Etymology

Origin of leister

1525–35; < Old Norse ljōstr salmon-spear, akin to ljōsta to strike

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

leister

I there wi' Something did forgather, That pat me in an eerie swither; An' awfu' scythe, out-owre ae shouther, Clear-dangling, hang; A three-tae'd leister on the ither Lay, large an' lang.

From Poems and Songs of Robert Burns by Robert Burns

Yet when anon he came to cast this leister at the muckle kipper, "the 14 lb. waster stottit off his back as if he had been a bag o' wool."

From Stories of the Border Marches by Jeanie Lang

This throwing leister was a heavy spear, or rather a heavy "graip," having five single-barbed prongs of unequal length but regularly graduated.

From Stories of the Border Marches by Jeanie Lang

Bait fishing for salmon, and the darker, though torch-illumined, mysteries of the leister, occupy the terminal chapters.

From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 333, July 1843 by Various

The leister of which Master Pearson spoke is a three-pronged fork used for spearing fish.

From John Deane of Nottingham Historic Adventures by Land and Sea by William Henry Giles Kingston

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