quarterstaff

Etymology
, attested since about 1550. Probably originally referred to a staff cut from the heartwood of a certain size of tree which was cleft into four parts, per the OED.

Noun

 * 1) A wooden staff of an approximate length between 2 and 2.5 meters, sometimes tipped with iron, used as a weapon in rural England during the Early Modern period.
 * 2) Fighting or exercise with the quarterstaff.
 * 1) Fighting or exercise with the quarterstaff.
 * 1) Fighting or exercise with the quarterstaff.

Usage notes
An attestation from 1590 of a quarter Ashe staffe shows that the "quarter" was an apposition and could still be detached (Richard Harvey, Plaine Perceuall the peace-maker of England , cited after the OED). Joseph Swetnam (1615) uses "quarterstaff" in the same sense in which George Silver (1599) had used "short staff", viz. for the staff between about 2 and 2.5 meters in length, as opposed to the "long staff" of a length exceeding 3 meters.

Contemporary use of the word disappears during the 18th century, and beginning with 19th-century Romanticism the word is mostly limited to antiquarian or historical usage.

Translations

 * Japanese:
 * Maori: tokotoko, huakau, tūmū
 * Turkish: