pilum

Borrowed from Latin pilum

pilum (plural pila or pilums)

1. (historical) A Roman military javelin.
   • 1776, Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Penguin 2000, p. 21:

     Besides a lighter spear, the Roman legionary grasped in his right hand the formidable pilum, a ponderous javelin whose utmost length was about six feet and which was terminated by a massy triangular point of steel of about eighteen inches.

   • 2011, Ben Aaronovitch, Rivers of London, Gollancz 2011, p. 371:

     Verica plucked a pilum from the hands of the nearest legionary – the soldier didn't react – and handed it to me.

2. (botany) The columella on the surface of a pollen grain

• pilum on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

From Proto-Italic *pistlom, from Proto-Indo-European *pis-tlo-, from *peys- (“to crush”). See pistillum and pīla.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈpiː.lum/, [ˈpiː.ɫũ]

pīlum n (genitive pīlī); second declension

1. a pounder, pestle
2. a javelin, throwing spear

Second declension.

• pīnsō

• pilum in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• pilum in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• pilum in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• Carl Meissner; Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • (ambiguous) to throw down the javelins (pila) and fight with the sword: omissis pilis gladiis rem gerere
    
• pilum in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• pilum in William Smith et al., editor (1890) A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin

pilum

1. accusative singular of pilus ("hair")