contus

Borrowed from Ancient Greek κοντός (kontós, “pole, pike”), from κεντέω (kentéō, “I sting, goad”).

contus m (genitive contī); second declension

1. long pole; pike
   • c. 100 CE – 110 CE, Tacitus, Histories 1.44:

     Praefixa contīs capita gestābantur inter signa cohortium iū̆xtā aquilam legiōnis...

     Heads attached to the points of pikes were being carried about next to the [heralidic] eagle of the legion...

Second-declension noun.

• percontor (perhaps)

• “contus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “contus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "contus", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• contus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “contus”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “contus”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin