E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Wa’pentake.
A division of Yorkshire, similar to that better known as a hundred. The word means “touch-arms,” it being the custom of each vassal, when he attended the assemblies of the district, “to touch the spear of his over-lord in token of homage.” Victor Hugo, in his novel of L’Homme qui Rit, calls a tipstaff a “wapentake.” (Anglo-Saxon, wapen, arms; tacan, to touch.)
