Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Mora

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

MORA (κνώδων, πτέρυξ). A projecting tooth or cross-bar on each side of a hunting-spear, below the head, and fixed to the ferrule or socket into which the shaft fits. Such an adjunct was more particularly employed in boar hunting; and its object was to prevent the point from penetrating too far, which would bring the animal into close contact with the huntsman; for as it came on with enormous weight and force, the shaft of the spear would follow the point unless it met with some resistance, up to the hands of the person who held it. (Grat. Cyneg. 110. Xen. Cyneg. x. 3. and 16. Pollux. v. 22.) The last cited author makes a distinction between the κνώδων and πτέρυξ, which is satisfactorily explained by the two examples annexed (Mora/1.1), both representing spear-heads from ancient monuments. (Alstorp. de Hast. p. 179.) The sharp curved points, like teeth, are the κνώδοντες; the straight ones with widening ends, like wings, the πτέρυγες; but as both served the same purpose of staying the onward course of the animal, they are included by the Latin writers under the one general name of mora, literally, a delay or hindrance.

2. The cross-bar which guards the handle of a sword, and prevents the blade from penetrating beyond it, as shown by the annexed example (Mora/2.1) from the sarcophagus of Alexander Severus, at Rome. Sil. Ital. i. 515.

3. A flat cross piece of wood at the bottom of a splint in which a broken leg is confined, for the purpose of supporting the foot and keeping the instrument in its proper place. Celsus, viii. 10. 5.

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  Mora/1.1
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  Mora/2.1