"spear" meaning in English

See spear in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /spɪə̯(r)/ [UK], /spɪr/ [US, Canada] Audio: en-us-spear.ogg [US] Forms: spear [singular], spears [plural]
Head templates: {{noun}} [POS TABLE]
  1. A spear is a long stick that is sharp at one or both ends and is used as a weapon.
    Sense id: simple-spear-en-noun-lZ2~ApgV
  2. A spear is a piece of asparagus or other vegetables that looks like a spear.
    Sense id: simple-spear-en-noun-cdDAWLXD

Verb

IPA: /spɪə̯(r)/ [UK], /spɪr/ [US, Canada] Audio: en-us-spear.ogg [US] Forms: spear [canonical], spears [third-person, singular], speared [past], speared [past, participle], spearing [present, participle]
Head templates: {{verb}} [POS TABLE]
  1. To spear is to stab someone or something with a spear.
    Sense id: simple-spear-en-verb-AmrWdKD4
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "spear",
      "tags": [
        "singular"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "spears",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "expansion": "[POS TABLE]",
      "name": "noun"
    }
  ],
  "hyphenation": "spear",
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Everyone in the Spartan Army carried a spear into battle"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A spear is a long stick that is sharp at one or both ends and is used as a weapon."
      ],
      "id": "simple-spear-en-noun-lZ2~ApgV",
      "raw_tags": [
        "countable"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "At the fancy restaurant, I had a steak with a side of asparagus spears"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A spear is a piece of asparagus or other vegetables that looks like a spear."
      ],
      "id": "simple-spear-en-noun-cdDAWLXD",
      "raw_tags": [
        "countable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/spɪə̯(r)/",
      "tags": [
        "UK"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/spɪr/",
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "Canada"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "en-us-spear.ogg",
      "raw_tags": [
        "Audio"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "spear"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "spear",
      "tags": [
        "canonical"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "spears",
      "tags": [
        "third-person",
        "singular"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "speared",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "speared",
      "tags": [
        "past",
        "participle"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "spearing",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "participle"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "expansion": "[POS TABLE]",
      "name": "verb"
    }
  ],
  "hyphenation": "spear",
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "The Cree used to spear fish."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To spear is to stab someone or something with a spear."
      ],
      "id": "simple-spear-en-verb-AmrWdKD4"
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/spɪə̯(r)/",
      "tags": [
        "UK"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/spɪr/",
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "Canada"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "en-us-spear.ogg",
      "raw_tags": [
        "Audio"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "spear"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "spear",
      "tags": [
        "singular"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "spears",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "expansion": "[POS TABLE]",
      "name": "noun"
    }
  ],
  "hyphenation": "spear",
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "Countable nouns"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Everyone in the Spartan Army carried a spear into battle"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A spear is a long stick that is sharp at one or both ends and is used as a weapon."
      ],
      "raw_tags": [
        "countable"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "Countable nouns"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "At the fancy restaurant, I had a steak with a side of asparagus spears"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A spear is a piece of asparagus or other vegetables that looks like a spear."
      ],
      "raw_tags": [
        "countable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/spɪə̯(r)/",
      "tags": [
        "UK"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/spɪr/",
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "Canada"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "en-us-spear.ogg",
      "raw_tags": [
        "Audio"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "spear"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "spear",
      "tags": [
        "canonical"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "spears",
      "tags": [
        "third-person",
        "singular"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "speared",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "speared",
      "tags": [
        "past",
        "participle"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "spearing",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "participle"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "expansion": "[POS TABLE]",
      "name": "verb"
    }
  ],
  "hyphenation": "spear",
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "The Cree used to spear fish."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To spear is to stab someone or something with a spear."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/spɪə̯(r)/",
      "tags": [
        "UK"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/spɪr/",
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "Canada"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "en-us-spear.ogg",
      "raw_tags": [
        "Audio"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "spear"
}

Download raw JSONL data for spear meaning in English (1.6kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-04-24 from the simplewiktionary dump dated 2025-04-20 using wiktextract (813e02a and ea19a0a). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.