lance

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A thrusting weapon with a long wooden shaft and a sharp metal head.
• noun A similar implement for spearing fish.
• noun A cavalry lancer.
• transitive verb To pierce with a lance.
• transitive verb Medicine To make a surgical incision in; cut into.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun A balance.
• To pierce with a lance, or with any sharp-pointed instrument.
• To open with or as if with a lancet: as, to lance an abscess.
• To throw in the manner of a javelin; launch.
• To shoot forth as a lance.
• To shoot or spring up.
• To pierce.
• noun A pointed stick of light timber used for the erection of a temporary telegraph-or telephone-line: used especially in military operations.
• noun A long spear used rather by couching and in the charge than for throwing; especially, the long spear of the middle ages, and of certain modern cavalry regiments in which the use of this arm is retained.
• noun Any long and slender spear: applied loosely to weapons of savage tribes, etc.
• noun The instrument with which a whale is killed after being harpooned and tired out.
• noun In carpentry, a pointed blade, as that affixed to one side of a chipping-bit or router to sever the grain around the path of the tool. It is also used in certain crozes, gages, and planes.
• noun A pyrotechnic squib used for various purposes.
• noun An iron rod which is fixed across the earthen mold of a shell, and keeps it suspended in the air when the shell is cast.
• noun One skilled in the use of the lance; a soldier armed with a lance; a lancer.
• noun In ichthyology, same as sand-lance.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• transitive verb To pierce with a lance, or with any similar weapon.
• transitive verb To open with a lancet; to pierce.
• transitive verb To throw in the manner of a lance. See Lanch.
• noun A weapon of war, consisting of a long shaft or handle and a steel blade or head; a spear carried by horsemen, and often decorated with a small flag; also, a spear or harpoon used by whalers and fishermen.
• noun A soldier armed with a lance; a lancer.
• noun (Founding) A small iron rod which suspends the core of the mold in casting a shell.
• noun (Mil.) An instrument which conveys the charge of a piece of ordnance and forces it home.
• noun (Pyrotech.) One of the small paper cases filled with combustible composition, which mark the outlines of a figure.
• noun (Med.) A lancet.
• noun in the Middle Ages, and subsequently, a knight or roving soldier, who was free to engage for any state or commander that purchased his services; hence, a person who assails institutions or opinions on his own responsibility without regard to party lines or deference to authority. See also freelance, n. and a., and freelancer.
• noun (Cavalry) a socket attached to a saddle or stirrup strap, in which to rest the but of a lance.
• noun same as Lancepesade.
• noun a lansquenet.
• noun (Zoöl.) the fer-de-lance.
• noun (Mil.) a kind of fuse filled with a composition which burns with a suffocating odor; -- used in the counter operations of miners.
• noun to engage in a tilt or contest.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A weapon of war, consisting of a long shaft or handle and a steel blade or head; a spear carried by horsemen.
• noun A wooden spear, sometimes hollow, used in jousting or tilting, designed to shatter on impact with the opposing knight’s armour.
• noun fishing A spear or harpoon used by whalers and fishermen.
• noun military A soldier armed with a lance; a lancer.
• noun military An instrument which conveys the charge of a piece of ordnance and forces it home.
• noun founding A small iron rod which suspends the core of the mold in casting a shell.
• noun pyrotechnics One of the small paper cases filled with combustible composition, which mark the outlines of a figure.
• noun medicine A lancet.
• verb To pierce with a lance, or with any similar weapon.
• verb To open with a lancet; to pierce; as, to lance a vein or an abscess.
• verb To throw in the manner of a lance; to lanch.