[f. SPEAR sb.1 Cf. G. speeren.]
1. trans. To pierce or transfix with a spear.
1755. in Johnson.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1824), III. 40. A prodigious ray … was speared by the Negroes at Guadaloupe.
1815. Scott, Guy M., liv. The only light … was a quantity of wood burnt to charcoal in an iron grate, such as they use in spearing salmon by night. Ibid. (1823), Quentin D., x. He would questionless have made in, and speared the brute.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., l. (1854), 480. I have seen them spear the eider on the wing.
1869. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1875), III. xii. 176. The poet tells us how the King saw his men speared and shot down.
fig. and transf. 1843. Carlyle, Past & Pr., IV. iii. Spearing down and destroying Falsehood.
1855. Tennyson, Maud, I. IV. 23. The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow spear’d by the shrike.
2. intr. To rise up like a spear.
1822. H. Ainslie, Pilgr. Land of Burns, 151. Do ye see a steeple yonner, spearing up frae amang the massy trees…?
1891. Illustr. Lond. News, 7 Feb., 174/1. The two broken masts, swinging and spearing high up under the … heaps of vapour.
