pilum

plural pila · plural pilums

1. historicalA Roman military javelin.

   Verica plucked a pilum from the hands of the nearest legionary – the soldier didn't react – and handed it to me.

   2011, Ben Aaronovitch, Rivers of London, Gollancz 2011, page 371

   1 more example

   Besides a lighter spear, the Roman legionary grasped in his right hand the formidable pilum, a ponderous javelin whose utmost length was about six feet and which was terminated by a massy triangular point of steel of about eighteen inches.

   1776, Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Penguin 2000, page 21

2. biologyThe columella on the surface of a pollen grain.