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).

(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