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mace

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: Appendix:Variations of "mace"

English

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A drum major carrying a mace (3).

Pronunciation

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(etymologies 1-3 (club, spice, tear gas)):

Etymology 1

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From Middle English mace, borrowed from Old French mace, mache, from Vulgar Latin *mattia, *mattea, matia, (compare Italian mazza, Spanish maza), probably from Proto-West Germanic *mattjō (“cutting tool, hoe”).

Noun

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mace (plural maces)

  1. A heavy fighting club.
    • 1786, Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons, page 51:
      The Mace is an ancient weapon, formerly much used by cavalry of all nations, and likewise by ecclesiastics, who in consequence of their tenures, frequently took the field, but were by a canon of the church forbidden to wield the sword.
  2. A ceremonial form of this weapon.
    • 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i], line 259:
      I am a king that find thee; and I know 'Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball, The sword, the mace, the crown imperial, The intertissued robe of gold and pearl
  3. A long baton used by some drum majors to keep time and lead a marching band. If this baton is referred to as a mace, by convention it has a ceremonial often decorative head, which, if of metal, usually is hollow and sometimes intricately worked.
  4. An officer who carries a mace as a token of authority.
  5. A knobbed mallet used by curriers to make leather supple when dressing it.
    • 1967, Harold B. Gill, Raymond R. Townsend, Thomas K. Ford, The Leatherworker in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg:
      In the foreground one man uses the "head knife” to work over the skin on the beam, while another softens a skin with the currier's mace.
  6. (archaic) A billiard cue.
Derived terms
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Translations
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Verb

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mace (third-person singular simple present maces, present participle macing, simple past and past participle maced)

  1. To hit someone or something with a mace.
See also
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Etymology 2

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From Middle English, from re-interpretation of macys as a plural (as with pea); from Latin macir. Doublet of macir.

Noun

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mace (uncountable)

  2. A spice obtained from the outer layer of the kernel of the fruit of the nutmeg.
    • c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii], line 45:
      I must have saffron to color the warden pies; mace; dates, none -- that's out of my note; nutmegs, seven; a race or two of ginger, but that I may beg; four pounds of prunes, and as many of raisins o' th' sun.
Descendants
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  • → Japanese: メース (meisu)
  • → Korean: 메이스 (meiseu)
  • → Maori: meihi
  • → Welsh: mês
Translations
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Etymology 3

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From the name of one brand of the spray, Mace. Pepper spray may be derived from cayenne pepper, but not from mace (etymology 2 above), which is a different spice; rather, it was named after the weapon (etymology 1).

Noun

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mace (countable and uncountable, plural maces)

  1. Tear gas or pepper spray, especially for personal use.
    • 2021 December 10, Michael Levenson, “Self-Proclaimed Proud Boys Member Gets 10 Years for Violence at Portland Protests”, in The New York Times‎[1], →ISSN:
      […] was sentenced on Friday to 10 years in prison for shooting a man in the eye with a paintball gun, spraying people in the face with bear mace and aiming a loaded handgun at a crowd, prosecutors said.
Translations
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Verb

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mace (third-person singular simple present maces, present participle macing, simple past and past participle maced)

  1. To spray in defense or attack with mace (pepper spray or tear gas) using a hand-held device.
  2. (informal) To spray a similar noxious chemical in defense or attack using an available hand-held device such as an aerosol spray can.
    • 1989, Carl Hiaasen, chapter 22, in Skin Tight, New York: Ballantine Books:
      When Reynaldo and Willie had burst into Larkey's drug store to confront him, the old man had maced Willie square in the eyes with an aerosol can of spermicidal birth-control foam.

Etymology 4

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Borrowed from Javanese [Term?] and Malay [Term?], meaning "a bean".

Noun

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mace (plural maces)

  1. An old money of account in China equal to one tenth of a tael.
  2. An old weight of 57.98 grains, approximately 3.8 grams.
    Synonyms: chee, tsien
    • 1883, Samuel Wells Williams, The Middle Kingdom: A Survey of the Geography, Government, Education, Social Life, Arts, Religion, &c., of the Chinese Empire and Its Inhabitants:
      The decimals of the tael, called mace, candareen, and cash (tsien, fǎn, and li) , are employed in reckoning bullion.

References

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Anagrams

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Albanian

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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Alternative variant of macë (“cat”),[1] ultimately derived from Proto-Slavic *maca, likely an onomatopoeic expression.[2]

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /mat͡sɛ/ (Standard)
  • IPA(key): /mãːt͡s/, /mõːt͡s/ (eastern Gheg)

Noun

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máce f (plural máce, definite mácja, definite plural mácet)

  1. (zoology) cat
  2. (figurative, derogatory) belligerent, wild woman

Declension

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Declension of mace
singular plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative mace macja mace macet
accusative macen
dative maceje maces maceve maceve
ablative macesh
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See also

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Noun

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mace

  1. indefinite dative/ablative singular of macë

References

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  1. ^ Orel, Vladimir E. (1998) “mace”, in Albanian Etymological Dictionary, Leiden, Boston, Köln: Brill, →ISBN, page 239
  2. ^ Omari, Anila (2012) “mace”, in Marrëdhëniet Gjuhësore Shqiptaro-Serbe, Tirana, Albania: Krishtalina KH, page 189

Further reading

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  • [2] noun mace/máce (cat) • Fjalor Shqip (Albanian Dictionary)

Galician

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Verb

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mace

  1. inflection of mazar:
    1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
    2. third-person singular imperative

Hausa

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Etymology

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Derived from mā̀tā through an adverbial form.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /mà.t͡ʃèː/
    • (Standard Kano Hausa) IPA(key): [mə̀.t͡ʃèː]

Noun

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màcḕ f (plural mātā, possessed form màcèn)

  1. woman
  2. female

Usage notes

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The possessed form may be seen as derogatory or ungrammatical by many speakers, and is often replaced by mā̀tar̃, the possessed form of mā̀tā.

Middle English

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Etymology 1

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From Old French mace, from Vulgar Latin *mattia, *mattea, probably from Latin mateola (“hoe”).

Alternative forms

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Pronunciation

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Noun

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mace (plural maces)

  2. A war club or mace.
  3. A club used for ceremonial purposes or as part of regalia.
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Descendants
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References
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Etymology 2

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Noun

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mace

  1. Alternative form of macys

Etymology 3

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Noun

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mace

  1. Alternative form of masse

Old French

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Etymology 1

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From Vulgar Latin *mattia, *mattea, itself probably derived from Latin mateola (“hoe”).

Noun

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mace oblique singular, f (oblique plural maces, nominative singular mace, nominative plural maces)

  1. mace (weapon)
Alternative forms
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Descendants
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Etymology 2

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From Latin macir.

Noun

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mace oblique singular, f (oblique plural maces, nominative singular mace, nominative plural maces)

  1. mace (spice)

References

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Papuan Malay

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Etymology

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Inherited from Malay makcik.

Noun

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mace

  1. form of address for a woman
    Coordinate term: pace

Portuguese

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Verb

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mace

  1. inflection of maçar:
    1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
    2. third-person singular imperative

Spanish

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Verb

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mace

  1. inflection of mazar:
    1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
    2. third-person singular imperative

Taraon

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Etymology

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Compare Idu माची

Pronunciation

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  • (Darang Deng) IPA(key): /mɑ³¹tɕi⁵³/

Noun

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mace

  1. water

References

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  • Roger Blench, Mark Post, (De)classifying Arunachal languages: Reconstructing the evidence (2011) (as macey)
  • Jatan Pulu, A Phrase Book on Taraon Language (1991) (as mace or in running text often macẽ)
  • Huang Bufan (editor), Xu Shouchun, Chen Jiaying, Wan Huiyin, A Tibeto-Burman Lexicon (1992; Central Minorities University, Beijing)
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