Other forms: spars
A spar is a stout pole used to carry a sail. A broken spar, rig the spar, spars and rigging.
It is the general word covering masts, booms and yards, so a boatbuilder says spar when the particular job does not matter. To spar is a separate verb meaning to box lightly for practice, or to argue without real anger.
1nounsparA stout pole used to carry a sail.
“The storm snapped a spar, and the sail crashed down onto the deck.”
spar is a pole.
Middle English sparre came from Middle Dutch or Low German, meaning a rafter or beam. The boxing verb is unrelated.
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)par- — beam, log
Proto-Germanic
*sparrô — stake, beam
Middle Low German
Sparre
Middle Dutch
sparre
Middle English
sparre — spar, rafter, beam
English, today
spar
Built from
From Middle English sparre (“spar, rafter, beam”) (noun), sparren (“to close, bar”) (verb), from Middle Dutch sparre or Middle Low German Sparre, all ultimately from Proto-Germanic sparrô (“stake, beam”), from Proto-Indo-European (s)par- (“beam, log”). Compare Dutch spar (“balk”), German Sparren (“rafter, spar”), Danish sparre (“spar”), Albanian shparr, shpardh (“kind of oak”). Perhaps also compare spear.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA