quintain
9.9
A horseback contest where a rider tries to hit a target with a lance
- noun
- /ˈkwɪnˌteɪn/
- Archaic
:
quintain
- During the festival, knights competed in a quintain contest to display their riding skills.
Examples
-
Yes, I'll do fine in the quintain, but, Sir Bryant says my skills with a broadsword are sorely lacking.
-
You tilted a quintain, boy.
-
The young squire practiced hitting the quintain to prepare for his first tournament.
-
In medieval training, a knight would charge at a quintain to improve his aim with a lance.
Surface Forms
Etymology
Quintain comes from the Latin quintana, which means 'fifth' and was the name of the fifth street in Roman camps where soldiers trained and set up targets, and those training contests became a sport. So a quintain is a riding exercise where a rider tries to hit a target with a lance, and you can remember the root by thinking of quint- as in quintet ('group of five').
