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Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
spear-head

c.1400, from spear (n.1) + head (n.). Figurative sense of "leading element" (of an attack, movement, etc.) is attested from 1893; the verb in this sense is recorded from 1938. Related: Spearheaded; spearheading.

Usage examples of "spear-head".

The man was seated upon the ground holding a stone anvil between his feet, while with his hands he turned and chipped with great skill a spear-head he was making out of flint.

Down these hillmen pour like cattle Sniffing pasture: grim below, Showing eager teeth of battle, In his spear-heads lies the foe.

Copper axes, spear-heads, hollow buttons, bosses for ornaments, bracelets, rings, etc.

The offerings to a greater shrine consisted of coarse woven silk (_ashiginu_), thin silk of five different colors, a kind of stuff called _shidori_ or _shidzu_, which is supposed by some to have been a striped silk, cloth of broussonetia bark or hemp, and a small quantity of the raw materials of which the cloth was made, models of swords, a pair of tables or altars (called _yo-kura-oki_ and _ya-kura-oki_), a shield or mantlet, a spear-head, a bow, a quiver, a pair of stag's horns, a hoe, a few measures of sake or rice-beer, some haliotis and bonito, two measures of _kituli_ (supposed to be salt roe), various kinds of edible seaweed, a measure of salt, a sake jar, and a few feet of matting for packing.