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spontoon

[spon-toon]
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noun
  1. a shafted weapon having a pointed blade with crossbar at its base, used by infantry officers in the 17th and 18th centuries.
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Origin of spontoon

1590–1600; < French esponton < Italian spuntone, equivalent to s- ex-1 + puntone kind of weapon (literally, pointed object) (punt(o) point + -one augmentative suffix)
Also called half-pike.
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words for spontoon

truncheon, nightstick, mace, bat, cane, club, rod, bludgeon, switch, stick, paddle, sap, blackjack, bastinado, ferule, shillelagh, cosh, billy, birch, shill

Examples from the Web for spontoon

Historical Examples of spontoon

  • Lady Emily is to be your nurse, and Spontoon and I your attendants.

    Waverley

    Sir Walter Scott

  • We have taken measures to exclude all servants but Spontoon, who is as true as steel.'

    Waverley

    Sir Walter Scott

  • The wolves which had been feasting on these carcasses were very fat, and so gentle that one of them was killed with a spontoon.

  • Spontoon' (to an elderly military-looking servant out of livery),'take away these things, and answer the bell yourself, if I ring.

  • I must send Spontoon to see what she is about; he will find her out among the old regimental connections.

British Dictionary definitions for spontoon

spontoon

noun
  1. a form of halberd carried by some junior infantry officers in the 18th and 19th centuries
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Word Origin for spontoon

C18: from French esponton, from Italian spuntone, from punto point
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012