Other forms: maces
A mace is a heavy club with a spiked head. Swing a mace, an iron mace, the ceremonial mace.
It was the answer to plate armour: a sword slides off plate where a mace transfers the shock through it. The ceremonial mace carried into parliaments descends from the weapon a monarch's bodyguard held. Mace is also a spice, the outer covering of nutmeg.
1nounmaceA heavy club with a spiked head.
“The knight swung his mace and knocked the enemy from his horse.”
mace is a weapon.
Old French mace comes from Vulgar Latin matia, a club. The spice is a separate word.
Proto-West Germanic
*mattjō — cutting tool, hoe
Vulgar Latin
matia
Old French
mace
Middle English
mace
English, today
mace
From Middle English mace, borrowed from Old French mace, mache, from Vulgar Latin matia, matia, matia, (compare Italian mazza, Spanish maza), probably from Proto-West Germanic mattjō (“cutting tool, hoe”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA