Forms: 5–6 spere, 6 speere, speare, 9 speer, 7– spear. [Irregular variant of SPIRE sb.1, perh. influenced by prec.]
† 1. A spire of a church or other building; a pyramid. Obs.
a. 1490. Botoner, Itin. (Nasmith, 1778), 221. Altitudo de le spere sicut modo fracto continet 200 pedes. [Ibid., 241. Spera sive pinaculum cum turri quadrata ecclesiæ Beatæ Mariæ de Radclyff.]
1509. Barclay, Shyp of Folys (1570), 169. Chemnis also as Diodorus sayes, Buylded a speere hye and wonderous, To beare remembraunce of his time and dayes, This speere was costly, dere and sumptuous.
1570–6. Lambarde, Peramb. Kent (1826), 260. The speare or steeple of which Churche was fired by lightening.
c. 1605. Acc. Bk. W. Wray, in Antiquary, XXXII. 212/2. The great spere of St Wilfrides steple.
1653. H. More, Antid. Ath., I. iv. § 2. If you say it consists of Points,… I can demonstrate that every Spear or Spire-Steeple is as thick as it is long.
1663. in Strype, Stow’s Surv. (1754), I. II. vii. 443/1. Your Lordship being the Owner of the greatest Part of the said Speare or Steeple.
1755. Mem. Capt. P. Drake, II. iii. 79. A great and rich Cloyster,… where there is a very fine Church that has four Spears.
2. The plumule or rudimentary shoot of a seed; spec. the acrospire of grain.
1647. Herrick, Noble Numbers, To Finde God. Tell me the motes, dust, sands, and speares Of Corn, when Summer shakes his eares.
1676. M. Cook, Forrest-Trees, xv. 63. Watering them [nuts, etc.] may Kill them, by making the Kernel swell too hastily, and so crack it before the spear causeth it; or it may Mould and stupifie the spear.
a. 1722. Lisle, Husb. (1757), 91. By the time the spear is shot under ground the corn is well rooted.
1888. Elworthy, W. Somerset Word-bk., s.v., In malting or other germination of grain, the spear is that sprout which develops into the future stalk, as distinct from the shoots which form rootlets.
b. A blade, shoot or sprout (of grass, etc.).
1841. Catlin, N. Amer. Ind., lv. (1844), II. 203. Not a spear of grass is broken or bent by his feet.
1865. Athenæum, No. 1979. 444/3. Leaves of trees and spears of corn.
1873. Joaquin Miller, Life amongst the Modocs, xx. 253. He pointed to the new leaves of the trees, [and] the spears that were bursting through the ground.
1896. Howells, Impressions & Exp., 283. Every spear of grass had been torn from it.
c. Similarly of hair.
1852. Mrs. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s C., II. xxv. 92. If they ’s to pull every spear o’ har out o’ my head, it would n’t do no good.
3. south. dial. a. collect. Reeds, esp. as a material for thatching, or for plastering upon.
1794. Trans. Soc. Arts, XII. 144. This prevents its being overrun with spear and sedge.
1819. Cobbett, Weekly Reg., 13 Feb., 658. In England we sometimes thatch with reeds, which in Hampshire, are called spear.
1894. Times, 14 June, 14/1. The long coarse herbage which fringes the banks of rivers and other streams, and is locally termed ‘spear,’ makes excellent thatch for hay and corn stacks.
b. A stem or stalk of a reed, osier, etc.
1844. W. Barnes, Poems Rur. Life (1847), 388. Spears.… The stems of the reed arundo phragmites, sometimes employed instead of laths to hold plaster.
1905. Westm. Gaz., 12 Aug., 5/1. She walked down to the water’s edge, through the green osier spears, bareheaded.
c. attrib. in spear-bed, reed.
1812. Col. Hawker, Diary (1893), I. 46. Second storeys of many houses of spear reed, cemented … with plaster.
1863. J. R. Wise, New Forest, 287. The phrase ‘spire-bed,’ or ‘spear-bed field,’ is very common, meaning a particular field, near where the ‘spires’ grow.
1874. T. Hardy, Far fr. Mad. Crowd, I. xxii. 251. I believe Farmer Boldwood kissed her behind the spear-bed at the sheep-washing.
