mace

Meanings

Noun

• A heavy fighting club.
• A ceremonial form of this weapon.
• 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.
• An officer who carries a mace as an emblem of authority.
• A knobbed mallet used by curriers in dressing leather to make it supple.
• A billiard cue.
• An old money of account in China equal to one tenth of a tael.
• An old weight of 57.98 grains.
• A spice obtained from the outer layer of the kernel of the fruit of the nutmeg.
• Tear gas or pepper spray, especially for personal use.

Verb

• To hit someone or something with a mace.
• To spray in defense or attack with mace (pepper spray or tear gas) using a hand-held device.
• To spray a similar noxious chemical in defense or attack using an available hand-held device such as an aerosol spray can.

Origin

• From Middle English mace, borrowed from Old French mace, mache, from Vulgar Latin *mattia, *mattea (compare Italian mazza, Spanish maza), probably from Latin mateola.
• Borrowed from Javanese and Malay, meaning "a bean".
• From Middle English, from re-interpretation of macys as a plural (as with pea); from Latin macir. macir.
• From the name of one brand of the spray, Mace. Pepper spray may be derived from cayenne pepper, but not from mace (definition 3 above), which is a different spice.