Danbooru

Tag Implication: glaive -> polearm

Posted under General

I think the term glaive is rather problematic, as the term can be used for several different kinds of weapons. If you use a normal dictionary, you'll find that they define glaive as a "sword; especially : broadsword." There is also the glaive that is the throwing weapon.

It seems to me that the definitions for glaive are likely this:
main stream media -> throwing weapon
dictionary definition -> sword
weapon enthusiast -> polearm

At minimum, the glaive wiki should mention these alternatives.

Bumping for implication.

Throwing spear-like weapon is called Javelin, never heard of it being referred as a glaive. And swords are usually tagged with tag of the same name or one of it's subtypes.
So it's only logical to use glaive for polearm weapon (which is already true) and explain all this in the wiki to avoid any possible confusion.

MyrMindservant said:
Bumping for implication.

Throwing spear-like weapon is called Javelin, never heard of it being referred as a glaive. And swords are usually tagged with tag of the same name or one of it's subtypes.
So it's only logical to use glaive for polearm weapon (which is already true) and explain all this in the wiki to avoid any possible confusion.

I should have been more clear, the throwing weapon is not a polearm, but like a type of large shuriken or throwing star. Can see here some examples of the "Hollywood glaive."
http://thedarkblade.com/introducing-the-glaive/
http://thedarkblade.com/some-contemporary-glaives/

The warcraft series also uses this type of "glaive" with the night elves, particularly with the "glaive thrower" siege unit and the "huntress." Though equipment in World of Warcraft apparently has both the polearm glaive and the "throwing glaive."
http://classic.battle.net/war3/nightelf/units/glaivethrower.shtml
http://classic.battle.net/war3/nightelf/units/huntress.shtml

The game Dark Sector, apparently also uses this kind of "glaive." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Sector
http://www.ign.com/top/video-game-weapons/53.

As for the sword, the word "glaive" is apparently derived from the Latin word "gladius."

  • Oxford Dictionary: noun literary. A sword
    • Origin: Middle English (denoting a lance or halberd): from Old French, apparently from Latin gladius 'sword.'
  • Merriam-Webster: noun archaic. sword; especially : broadsword
    • Origin: Middle English, from Anglo-French, sword, lance, from Latin gladius sword
  • Dictionary.com: noun archaic. A sword or broadsword.
    • Origin: 1250–1300; Middle English < Old French glaive, glai < Latin gladius sword
  • Collins World English Dictionary: noun. an archaic word for sword
    • Origin: [C13: from Old French: javelin, from Latin gladius sword]

Updated

Fictional weapons "Glaive" are named weapons. Leave it to manual tagging and copyright disambiguators.

Archaic usage of of 'glaive' may refer to either claymore (sword) or short sword.

But there is this one fact from the wiki:

According to the 1599 treatise Paradoxes of Defense by the English gentleman George Silver, the glaive is used in the same general manner as the quarterstaff, half pike, bill, halberd, voulge, or partisan. Silver rates this class of polearms above all other individual hand-to-hand combat weapons.

Starting 15th century, the term was fixed. Furthermore, lots of posts depict this name 'glaive' as polearms.

After digging around for awhile it would appear like this to me, though using google translator so it can all be horribly wrong. Glaive's two meanings (not counting the on the spot made up usage by Hollywood) both came about from France. Originally the term was derived from the Latin word Gladius for sword. The Germans then had a small cavalry unit called a "gleve" and a polearm weapon called a "glefe." The military unit then was either named after the polearm weapon or after the French word, though the French wiki for gladius/glaive would seem to suggest the polearm meaning derived from the German word, so the military unit was probably named after the polearm. The French then started using the term glaive to mean the polearm weapon after the German glefe/gleve. Over time as the weapon was apparently phased it (probably as firearms replaced them), the usage of it to mean a sword returned again as they started producing and using ceremonial swords in the 18th century.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glefe
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleve
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glaive
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lances_fournies (German section for mentions of Gleve)

As for the fictional weapons being "named weapons," that's not true. The majority of the fictional glaves are unnamed and regardless of having or not having a name they all still share the same usage and most share the same general shape, so it is still a specific type of weapon. If they had to have a tag, "throwing_glaive" would probably be it, but that's only if they actually need their own tag and wouldn't fall under a currently existing tag. The only series that would probably bring that type of weapon here would be Warcraft, since we do get fanart for that series (post #138209 being the only example I have), but the weapon tends to share a lot of similarities in appearance to oversized shuriken so it could probably just end up tagged that.

For what is actually depicted under the glaive tag currently, you must take into consideration that those who would tag sub-classes and specific types of weapons beyond broader weapon tags tend to be weapon enthusiasts. They're also the ones most inclined to define it using the polearm definition, thus what is represented by the tag currently is from a biased sample of people.

Anyways, I've said at minimum we need to mention the alternative definitions in the wiki for the tag, even if the tag itself is only used for the polearm. The name is used for 3 completely different types of weapons after all.

NWF_Renim said:
As for the fictional weapons being "named weapons," that's not true. The majority of the fictional glaves are unnamed and regardless of having or not having a name they all still share the same usage and most share the same general shape, so it is still a specific type of weapon. If they had to have a tag, "throwing_glaive" would probably be it, but that's only if they actually need their own tag and wouldn't fall under a currently existing tag. The only series that would probably bring that type of weapon here would be Warcraft, since we do get fanart for that series (post #138209 being the only example I have), but the weapon tends to share a lot of similarities in appearance to oversized shuriken so it could probably just end up tagged that.

The "named" part is according to creator's idea, be it weapon type or name itself. Some examples look like shuriken variants.

For what is actually depicted under the glaive tag currently, you must take into consideration that those who would tag sub-classes and specific types of weapons beyond broader weapon tags tend to be weapon enthusiasts. They're also the ones most inclined to define it using the polearm definition, thus what is represented by the tag currently is from a biased sample of people.

Anyways, I've said at minimum we need to mention the alternative definitions in the wiki for the tag, even if the tag itself is only used for the polearm. The name is used for 3 completely different types of weapons after all.

So, disambiguators? But the glaive sword (if the French assume that this weapon is gladius) would probably end up being tagged as short sword. Even claymore can be either longsword or broadsword if history is considered. Furthermore, the specification 'glaive' came from a treatise, as I pointed previously.

1