mace

Etymology 1

From Middle English mace, borrowed from Old French mace, mache, from Vulgar Latin *mattia, *mattea (compare Italian mazza, Spanish maza), probably from Latin mateola (“hoe”).

noun

1. A heavy fighting club.
   The Mace is an ancient weapon, formerly much used by cavalry of all nations, and likewise by ecclesiastics, who in consequence of their tenures, frequently took the field, but were by a canon of the church forbidden to wield the sword. 1786, Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons, page 51
2. A ceremonial form of this weapon.
3. A long baton used by some drum majors to keep time and lead a marching band. If this baton is referred to as a mace, by convention it has a ceremonial often decorative head, which, if of metal, usually is hollow and sometimes intricately worked.
4. An officer who carries a mace as a token of authority.
5. A knobbed mallet used by curriers make leather supple when dressing it.
   In the foreground one man uses the "head knife” to work over the skin on the beam, while another softens a skin with the currier's mace. 1967, Harold B. Gill, Raymond R. Townsend, Thomas K. Ford, The Leatherworker in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg
6. (archaic) A billiard cue.

verb

1. To hit someone or something with a mace.

Etymology 2

From Middle English, from re-interpretation of macys as a plural (as with pea); from Latin macir. Doublet of macir.

noun

1. A spice obtained from the outer layer of the kernel of the fruit of the nutmeg.

Etymology 3

From the name of one brand of the spray, Mace. Pepper spray may be derived from cayenne pepper, but not from mace (definition 3 above), which is a different spice.

noun

1. Tear gas or pepper spray, especially for personal use.
   […] was sentenced on Friday to 10 years in prison for shooting a man in the eye with a paintball gun, spraying people in the face with bear mace and aiming a loaded handgun at a crowd, prosecutors said. 2021-12-10, Michael Levenson, “Self-Proclaimed Proud Boys Member Gets 10 Years for Violence at Portland Protests”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

verb

1. To spray in defense or attack with mace (pepper spray or tear gas) using a hand-held device.
2. (informal) To spray a similar noxious chemical in defense or attack using an available hand-held device such as an aerosol spray can.
   When Reynaldo and Willie had burst into Larkey's drug store to confront him, the old man had maced Willie square in the eyes with an aerosol can of spermicidal birth-control foam. 1989, Carl Hiaasen, chapter 22, in Skin Tight, New York: Ballantine Books

Etymology 4

Borrowed from Javanese [Term?] and Malay [Term?], meaning "a bean".

noun

1. An old money of account in China equal to one tenth of a tael.
2. An old weight of 57.98 grains.
   The decimals of the tael, called mace, candareen, and cash (tsien, fǎn, and li) , are employed in reckoning bullion. 1883, Samuel Wells Williams, The Middle Kingdom: A Survey of the Geography, Government, Education, Social Life, Arts, Religion, &c., of the Chinese Empire and Its Inhabitants