spearcaster

plural spearcasters

1. A sling-like device used to impart greater impetus to a thrown spear.

   australian weapons. 1, knife; 2, club; 3, spearcaster.

   1897, John Clark Ridpath, chapter CXCI, in Ridpath's Universal History: An Account of the Origin, Primitive Condition and Ethnic Development of the Great Races of Mankind, and of the Principal Events in the Evolution and Progress of the Civilized Life among Men and Nations, from Recent and Authentic Sources with a Preliminary Inquiry on the Time, Place and Manner of the Beginning. … Complete in Sixteen Volumes, volume VIII, book xxx, Cincinnati, Oh.: The Jones Brothers Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 706, column 1

2. A soldier or guard armed with a spear used as a ranged weapon.

   She felt near fainting with relief. Not that the blaster solved many problems. It wouldn’t get them out of a city aswarm with archers and spearcasters.

   1963, Analog Science Fact / Science Fiction, LXXI, 69

3. A track-and-field athlete who throws a spear or spears; a javelinist, a javelin thrower.

   Those spearcasters using the front carry feel relieved of the responsibility of thinking about the javelin during the run.

   1969, Francis Xavier Cretzmeyer et al., Bresnahan and Tuttle’s Track and Field Athletics, 7th edition, Saint Louis, Mo.: C. V. Mosby Co., →OCLC, page 242