Wiktionary
alt. a long pike used in the traditional Greek phalanx formation. n. a long pike used in the traditional Greek phalanx formation.
Wikipedia
The sarissa or sarisa was a long spear or pike about in length used in ancient Greek and Hellenistic warfare. It was introduced by Philip II of Macedon and was used in his Macedonian phalanxes as a replacement for the earlier dory, which was considerably shorter. These longer spears improved the traditional strength of the phalanx by extending the rows of overlapping weapons projecting towards the enemy, and the word remained in use throughout the Byzantine years to sometimes describe the long spears of their own infantry.
Usage examples of "sarissa".
There was a bitter edge to this sneer that was a little surprising to everyone who heard it, perhaps even to Sarissa Wayne herself.
Apparently, this ardent inarticulacy conveyed an answer to Sarissa that she found satisfactory.
To have Sarissa, whom he had thought irreversibly inimical to him, holding him with such single-mindedness, was to him in the nature of a prodigy.
Japhet, Nemo, Penny and Sarissa all held flensing knives, and Japhet had used the little industrial lasers the boats carried to good effect on the plastic oars their emergency rafts contained.
Waverly sat at his little bench, where he and Sarissa had unravelled the innards of three more of the objects found in the skull.
Japhet welded harpoon line into three-strand cables, Nemo and Sarissa toiled by camp lanterns modifying rifle ammunition, Orson and Penny converted the tough hides of freshly slaughtered delphs into a hundred meters of tubing, Orson scrolling the material and holding it for Penny to fuse with the bright needle-fine laser beam.
They sounded from the knoll Sarissa had been stationed on the day before.
It is there that Sarissa and her friends like to ply their whips and other instruments.
Macedonian phalanx was based on a pike, called the sarissa, which was some twenty feet in length.
Theoparlis and the Guards crashed through the last line of defence and, as Onomarchus turned to meet the attack, a sarissa clove through his leather kilt, smashing his hip and ripping the giant artery at the groin.
Letting the sarissa fall, he pulled his helmet from his head and sank to the earth staring around the battlefield.
I was alone now, my back to a tree, sarissa in one hand and sword in the other.
The warrior in the front row of the phalanx held the sarissa shaft in the crook of his right arm, while a second man behind him took up the weight of the spear, ready to ram it forward into the enemy ranks.
The iron sarissa points clove through shields and breastplates, punching men from their feet.
But then an Illyrian warrior, speared through the belly, seized the sarissa that was killing him and held on to it.