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Origin and history of glaive

glaive(n.)

late 13c., used in Middle English of various weapons, especially ones with a long shaft ending in a point or an attached blade, from Old French glaive "lance, spear, sword" (12c.), also figuratively used for "violent death," probably from Latin gladius "sword" (see gladiator); influenced by Latin clava "knotty branch, cudgel, club," related to clavus "nail."

also from late 13c.

Entries linking to glaive

gladiator(n.)

mid-15c., "Roman swordsman," from Latin gladiator (fem. gladiatrix) "fighter in the public games; swordsman," from gladius "sword" (there is no verb *gladiare), which probably is from Gaulish (compare Welsh cleddyf, Cornish clethe, Breton kleze "sword;" see claymore). Old Irish claideb is from Welsh.

The close connection with Celtic words for 'sword', together with the imperfect match of initial consonants, and the semantic field of weaponry, suggests that Latin borrowed a form *gladio- or *kladio- (a hypothetical variant of attested British Celtic *kladimo- 'sword') from [Proto-Celtic] or from a third language. [de Vaan]
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