spearplay

English

Etymology

From spear +‎ play.

Noun

spearplay (uncountable)

1. Fighting (or practice exercises) with spears.
   • 1955, George Rippey Stewart, The Years of the City, page 187:

     The farmer or the potter or the merchant takes down his father's old spear, puts the old armor on, practices the spearplay, takes his place in the ranks, and goes through the drill as is expected of him.

   • 2015, Colin Burrow, ‘The Empty Bath’, London Review of Books, volume 37, number 12:

     What this spear-play reveals is something central to Homer, and to many of the arguments about Homer which have raged over the past two centuries.