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The Gleave name

The Gleave name

Jim Langton (View posts)
Posted: 16 Mar 2002 12:11PM GMT
Classification: Query
It is an English name,chiefly associated with Lancashire.
It originated from a maker or seller of swords,or a nickname for an accomplished swordsman.Derived from Latin gladius,Old French-glieve,Middle English-gleve.

Jim Langton-Ireland

Source....Ireland's Own magazine.

Re: The Gleave name

jeremy alexander william gleave (View posts)
Posted: 10 May 2002 6:49PM GMT
Classification: Query
hello I am a gleave in South Africa my grand mother was a Sunderland from Ireland and my grand father Sydney Rowland Gleave from I think near Middlesbourgh my cousin lives in Leistershire his name is Donald Sunderland Gleave and his brother is John Gleave in Jersey island .If this helps you and i can be of any assistance you have my address regards Jeremy gleave

Re: The Gleave name

Posted: 22 Dec 2009 11:17AM GMT
Classification: Query
Surnames: Gleave
Have to beg to differ with this... Gleave was also a name that was derived from Scotland and adopted by a subset of the Clan MacLeay (I think they needed to disappear at some point in the complex history of Scots clans, either due to a catholicism or similar)and were pretry scattered, but formally resided in a remote spot off the north west coast of scotland near Skye. This name association is tagged in official records (hence a search for gleave tartan will provide you with a MacLeay link) but I have never been able to find out more....the story as a whole was part of family folklore, lonsince lost I fear.

Re: The Gleave name

Posted: 26 Sep 2012 3:08PM GMT
Classification: Query
Edited: 26 Sep 2012 3:09PM GMT
I was a Gleave and can trace family back to 1700s. I understood that all Gleave's eminated from Cheshire, the name is in the Doomsday Book.

Re: The Gleave name

Posted: 11 Mar 2013 3:24AM GMT
Classification: Query
Surnames: Gleave
Thank you for your reply, and my rather belated reply! I am in New Zealand at the moment, and just were looking at some surnames, more esp my son-in-law, North, and just checked my own! I believe my cousin who lives in Leicester, has delved even deeper, as far back as 1100 or so,will get him to mail me details.I will be back in Cape Town South Africa at end of March,I am just visiting my daughter,who lives here now. regards, Jem.

Re: The Gleave name

Posted: 9 Mar 2014 10:43PM GMT
Classification: Query
In her book "The Story of the Gleaves of High Leigh", Peggy Sumner takes 5.5 pages to discuss "The Name Gleave". Quote : "The similarity between the English word Gleave and the French word Glaive (also obsolete) which means a sort of short broadsword, has misled dictionary makers into thinking that 'Gleave' meant the same, but the best authorities recognise now that this is wrong."

And elsewhere: "The word Gleave is an obsolete old Anglo-Saxon word which means the point of a lance. It has been so long out of use that the philologists have always had difficulty in agreeing as to what the word really did mean; but the most eminent philologists have lately come to agree that the meaning is as above, namely the point of a lance."

As of 2005, this is The New Century Dictionary definition of the word : "Glave, Glaive, formerly also Gleave. M E Glaive, Glayve, Gleive, Gleyve. A lance or spear (not a sword). MLG Gleave, Gleive, The point of a lance. A lance - MHG."

Lindsay / South Australia.
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