Spear or speer?
spear is a noun meaning “A long stick with a sharp tip used as a weapon for throwing or thrusting, or…”; speer is a verb meaning “to ask, to inquire”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) spear is about 10 times as common as speer.
What is the difference between spear and speer?
| spear | speer | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, verb, adjective | verb |
| Meaning | A long stick with a sharp tip used as a weapon for throwing or thrusting, or anything used to make a thrusting motion A soldier armed with such a weapon; a spearman To pierce with a spear | |
| Example | a spear counterpart | none recorded |
| Forms | spears | speers, speering, speered |
| Pronunciation | /spɪə̯(ɹ)/ /spɪɹ/ | not recorded |
| In writing | 5.0 times per million words | about once in every 2 million words |
Sources: spear and speer in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of spear and speer
spear
- 1
A long stick with a sharp tip used as a weapon for throwing or thrusting, or anything used to make a thrusting motion
- 2
To pierce with a spear
- 3
Male
a spear counterpart
- 4
The sprout of a plant, stalk
- 5
A soldier armed with such a weapon; a spearman
- 6
To penetrate or strike with, or as if with, any long narrow object; to make a thrusting motion that catches an object on the tip of a long device
- 7
Pertaining to male family members
the spear side of the family
- 8
A lance with barbed prongs, used by fishermen to retrieve fish
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, spear or speer?
spear appears 5.0 times per million words; speer about once in every 2 million words.
spear 5.0 times per million wordsspeer about once in every 2 million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).