Lace vs Spike - What's the difference?

lace | spike |

As a noun lace

is cheapness.

As a proper noun spike is

lace

English

Noun

(uncountable) A light fabric containing patterns of holes, usually built up from a single thread.^(w)

* (Francis Bacon) (1561-1626)

Our English dames are much given to the wearing of costly laces .

* , title=The Mirror and the Lamp

, chapter=2 citation , passage=She was a fat, round little woman, richly apparelled in velvet and lace , […]; and the way she laughed, cackling like a hen, the way she talked to the waiters and the maid, […]—all these unexpected phenomena impelled one to hysterical mirth, and made one class her with such immortally ludicrous types as Ally Sloper, the Widow Twankey, or Miss Moucher.}}

Mind you, clothes were clothes in those days. […] Frills, ruffles, flounces, lace , complicated seams and gores: not only did they sweep the ground and have to be held up in one hand elegantly as you walked along, but they had little capes or coats or feather boas.

(countable) A cord or ribbon passed through eyelets in a shoe or garment, pulled tight and tied to fasten the shoe or garment firmly.^(w)

A snare or gin, especially one made of interwoven cords; a net.

* (Geoffrey Chaucer) (c.1343-1400)

Vulcanus had caught thee [Venus] in his lace .

(Fairfax)

(slang, obsolete) Spirits added to coffee or another beverage.

(Addison)

Synonyms

* (cord) ** (for a shoe) shoelace ** (for a garment) tie

Verb

(lac)

(label) To fasten (something) with laces.

* (Matthew Prior) (1664-1721)

When Jenny's stays are newly laced .

(label) To add alcohol, poison, a drug or anything else potentially harmful to (food or drink).

(label) To interweave items. (lacing one's fingers together)

, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=8 , passage=Now we plunged into a deep shade with the boughs lacing each other overhead, and crossed dainty, rustic bridges over the cold trout-streams, the boards giving back the clatter of our horses' feet: or anon we shot into a clearing, with a colored glimpse of the lake and its curving shore far below us.}}

(label) To interweave the spokes of a bicycle wheel.

To beat; to lash; to make stripes on.

* (w, Roger L'Estrange) (1616-1704)

I'll lace your coat for ye.

To adorn with narrow strips or braids of some decorative material.

(Shakespeare)

Derived terms

* enlace * lace into * lace-up shoes / lace-ups * lacy

Anagrams

* ----

spike

English

Noun

(en noun)

An ear of corn or grain.

# (botany) A kind of inflorescence in which sessile flowers are arranged on an unbranched elongated axis.

oil of spike

Something pointed or sharp.

# A sort of very large nail; anything resembling such a nail in shape.

#* Addison

He wears on his head the corona radiata ; the spikes that shoot out represent the rays of the sun.

# The long, narrow part of a woman's high-heeled shoe that elevates the heel.

# A sharp peak in a graph.

# a surge in power.

# (informal) In spikes : running shoes with spikes in the soles.

# (volleyball) An attack from, usually, above the height of the net performed with the intent to send the ball straight to the floor of the opponent or off the hands of the opposing block.

(zoology) An adolescent male deer.

(slang) The casual ward of a workhouse.

* 1933 : , p. 139.

"Dere's tay spikes', and cocoa '''spikes''', and skilly ' spikes ."

Synonyms

* catkin, raceme, cluster, corymb, umbel

Derived terms

Verb

(spik)

To fix on a spike; to pierce or run through with a spike.

# To fasten with spikes, or long, large nails.

to spike down planks

# To set or furnish with spikes.

(Young)

# (military) To render (a gun) unusable by driving a metal spike into its touch hole.

#* 1834 , (Frederick Marryat), Peter Simple :

He jumped down, wrenched the hammer from the armourer’s hand, and seizing a nail from the bag, in a few moments he had spiked the gun.

#* 1990 , (Peter Hopkirk), The Great Game , Folio Society 2010, p. 235-6:

Small skirmishes also took place, and the Afghans managed to seize a pair of mule-guns and force the British to spike and abandon two other precious guns.

# (journalism) To decide not to publish or make public. (From the former practice of newspaper editors impaling sheets of typewritten articles not selected for publication on a metal spike or spindle placed on their desks: see 2010 quotation.)

#* '>citation

# (American football) To slam a football to the ground, usually in celebration of scoring a touchdown, or to stop expiring time on the game clock after snapping the ball as to save time for the losing team to attempt to score the tying or winning points.

# (volleyball) To attack from, usually, above the height of the net with the intent to send the ball straight to the floor of the opponent or off the hands of the opposing block.

To increase sharply.

Traffic accidents spiked in December when there was ice on the roads.

To add a small amount of one substance to another.

The water sample to be tested has been spiked with arsenic, antimony, mercury, and lead in quantities commonly found in industrial effluents.

* '>citation

# (specifically) To covertly put alcohol or another intoxicating substance into food or drink.

She spiked my lemonade with vodka!

Derived terms

* spike someone's guns

Synonyms

* (volleyball): attack, hit

Anagrams

* * * English terms with multiple etymologies