Baston

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An old term for a stout stick or cudgel used as a weapon or walking staff ; in heraldry, a narrow diagonal band running across a shield from upper left to lower right
2. A heavy wooden club or staff carried as a weapon in earlier times ; a heraldic charge shaped as a narrow bar set diagonally on an escutcheon
3. Archaically, a thick cudgel or walking stick ; in coats of arms, a slender bendlet laid diagonally across the field of a shield

Etymology: Old French "baston" meant a stick or staff, and it reached English as a close relative of "baton" rather than a direct copy of it. The two words split from the same Old French source at different times and took on different English lives: "baton" came in later and kept the sense of a short rod or conductor's wand, while "baston" was taken into Middle English and settled into the sense of a heavy wooden club. The English form therefore preserves an older, rougher version of the same stick. Because the word is a doublet, it sits alongside its sibling in English rather than replacing it. Both trace back to the idea of a rod carried in the hand, and the difference between them is mostly one of use and date of arrival, not of underlying meaning.

Synonyms: cudgel, club, truncheon, baton, staff