Jereeds

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Long, slender spears traditionally used in North African equestrian games or ceremonial displays ; rods or shafts handled for sporting or martial demonstrations
2. Weapons resembling lances, typically employed in horseback tournaments or decorative parades ; elongated poles associated with skillful riding events
3. Thin javelin-like implements used by mounted participants in traditional displays or competitions ; tapered poles wielded in exhibition or ritual contexts

Etymology: "Jereeds" is simply the plural of "jereed," so the story belongs to the singular. The word came into English from Ottoman Turkish, where it appeared as "cirid" (modern Turkish "cirit"), and that in turn was taken from the Arabic "jarīd," meaning a palm stalk or a light dart. The name fits the object: the jereed was a blunted wooden shaft, thrown or carried by horsemen in mounted games, and the stick's original identity as a plant stem stayed with it. The most striking part of the history is how the sport itself spread. Jereed play was a fixture of Ottoman court and military culture, where riders hurled these shafts at one another at full gallop, and the Turkish term carried that equestrian skill across the Islamic world and into European accounts of the Ottoman court. English borrowed the word to name the weapon and its game, which is why it now sounds exotic to most readers even though it began as an ordinary word for a slender stem.

Synonyms: lances, spears, pikes, poles, staffs