launce

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /lɑːns/, /lɔːns/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

  • Rhymes: -ɑːns, -ɔːns

Etymology 1

See lance.

Noun

launce (plural launces)

1. Obsolete form of lance.
2. 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)

1. Obsolete form of lance.

Etymology 2

From Italian lance, Latin lanx, lancis (“plate, scale of a balance”); compare balance.

Noun

launce (plural launces)

1. (obsolete) A balance.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 4:

     Fortune all in equall launce doth sway.

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)

1. A lance (long spear).
2. A javelin (throwing spear).
3. (rare) A lancer; someone armed with a lance.
4. (figurative, rare) That which is long and pointed.

Related terms

• launceǒur
• launcele
• launcen
• launcet
• launcegay

Descendants

• English: lance, launce
• Scots: lance

References

• “launce, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Etymology 2

Noun

launce

1. Alternative form of launcen (“to push forwards”)