goedendag

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

goedendag (plural goedendags)

1. (historical) A club with a spike on top, used as a weapon by the militias of medieval Flanders.
   • 2002, J. F. Verbruggen, The Battle of the Golden Spurs (Courtrai, 11 July 1302): A Contribution to the History of Flanders' War of Liberation, 1297-1305, Boydell & Brewer, →ISBN, page 203:

     In the centre of the depiction there is a soldier with a goedendag. To the far right the bearer of the wine carriers' banner can be seen armed with a special sword that is very wide and ends in a sharp point, a falchion.

   • 2010, Jan Piet Puype, Harm Stevens, Arms and Armour of Knights and Landsknechts in the Netherlands Army Museum, Eburon Uitgeverij B.V., →ISBN, page 245:

     […] 1302, in which Flemish farmers and civilians armed with goedendags stand in battle formation. The goedendags resemble long clubs, but they have a much wider beating ring around the top and it is possible that a daring combatant  […]

   • 2010, Randall Fegley, The Golden Spurs of Kortrijk: How the Knights of France Fell to the Foot Soldiers of Flanders in 1302, McFarland, →ISBN:

     A buckler cost £1 and a goedendag cost 10 shillings. Body armor, gauntlets, armored hose,and possibly a doublet would be added to this.

   • 2019, Harry Pearson, The Beast, the Emperor and the Milkman: A Bone-shaking Tour through Cycling’s Flemish Heartlands, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, page 76:

     As it was he was fighting the blue-blooded French knights on foot armed with a weapon called a goedendag. The goedendag was a four-foot-long wooden pole with a heavy round steel head capped with a six-inch spike.

• goededag, goeiedag, goeiendag

Univerbation of goeden dag (“good day”, accusative phrase). For the weapon sense, compare French dague (“spiked end of the whipping rope”).

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “and the weapon sense?”)

• IPA^(key): /ɣu.də(n)ˈdɑx/, /ɣu.jəˈdɑx/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: goe‧den‧dag

goedendag

1. hello, good day (greeting used during daytime)

goedendag m (plural goedendags)

1. a club with a spike on top, used as a weapon in the late Middle Ages

• → English: goedendag