spill
English
Etymology
From Middle English spillen, from Old English spillan, spildan (“to kill, destroy, waste”), from Proto-Germanic *spilþijaną (“to spoil, kill, murder”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)pel- (“to sunder, split, rend, tear”).
Cognate with Dutch spillen (“to use needlessly, waste”), French gaspiller ("to waste, squander" < Germanic), Bavarian spillen (“to split, cleave, splinter”), Danish spille (“to spill, waste”), Swedish spilla (“to spill, waste”), Icelandic spilla (“to contaminate, spoil”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /spɪl/
Audio (US) (file) Audio (AU) (file) - Rhymes: -ɪl
Verb
spill (third-person singular simple present spills, present participle spilling, simple past and past participle spilled or spilt)
- (transitive) To drop something so that it spreads out or makes a mess; to accidentally pour.
- I spilled some sticky juice on the kitchen floor.
- (intransitive) To spread out or fall out, as above.
- Some sticky juice spilled onto the kitchen floor.
- Isaac Watts
- He was so topful of himself, that he let it spill on all the company.
- (transitive) To drop something that was intended to be caught.
- To mar; to damage; to destroy by misuse; to waste.
- Puttenham
- They [the colours] disfigure the stuff and spill the whole workmanship.
- Fuller
- Spill not the morning, the quintessence of day, in recreations.
- Puttenham
- (obsolete) To be destroyed, ruined, or wasted; to come to ruin; to perish; to waste.
- Chaucer
- That thou wilt suffer innocents to spill.
- Chaucer
- To cause to flow out and be lost or wasted; to shed.
- Dryden
- to revenge his blood so justly spilt
- Dryden
- To cover or decorate with slender pieces of wood, metal, ivory, etc.; to inlay.
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Spenser to this entry?)
- (nautical) To relieve a sail from the pressure of the wind, so that it can be more easily reefed or furled, or to lessen the strain.
- (transitive, Australian politics) To open the leadership of a parliamentary party for re-election.
- (transitive) To reveal information to an uninformed party.
- He spilled his guts out to his new psychologist.
Derived terms
Translations
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Noun
spill (plural spills)
- (countable) A mess of something that has been dropped.
- A fall or stumble.
- The bruise is from a bad spill he had last week.
- A small stick or piece of paper used to light a candle, cigarette etc by the transfer of a flame from a fire.
- 2008, Elizabeth Bear, Ink and Steel: A Novel of the Promethean Age:
- Kit froze with the pipe between his teeth, the relit spill pressed to the weed within it.
- 2008, Elizabeth Bear, Ink and Steel: A Novel of the Promethean Age:
- A slender piece of anything.
- A peg or pin for plugging a hole, as in a cask; a spile.
- A metallic rod or pin.
- (mining) One of the thick laths or poles driven horizontally ahead of the main timbering in advancing a level in loose ground.
- (sound recording) The situation where sound is picked up by a microphone from a source other than that which is intended.
- (obsolete) A small sum of money.
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Ayliffe to this entry?)
- (Australian politics) A declaration that the leadership of a parliamentary party is vacant, and open for re-election. Short form of leadership spill.
Quotations
- For quotations of use of this term, see Citations:spill.
Derived terms
Translations
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Gothic
Luxembourgish
Norwegian Bokmål
Alternative forms
Etymology 1
From the verb spille
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /spɪl/
- Rhymes: -ɪl
Noun
spill n (definite singular spillet, indefinite plural spill, definite plural spilla or spillene)
- a game (or part of a game, e.g., a hand, a round); equipment for a game (e.g., deck of cards, set of dice, board, men, pieces, etc.)
- play, playing
- ballen er ute av spill - the ball is out of play
- gambling; card-playing
- musical instrument (in compounds such as trekkspill (“accordion”))
- stage play
- flickering, play, sparkling (of flames, lights, colors, eyes, a smile)
Derived terms
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See also
- spel (Nynorsk)
Swedish
Noun
spill n