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Spall vs Spill - What's the difference?

spall | spill |

In transitive terms the difference between spall and spill

is that spall is to reduce, as irregular blocks of stone, to an approximately level surface by hammering while spill is to drop something that was intended to be caught.

spall

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl)

Alternative forms

*spawl

Noun

(en noun)
  • A splinter, fragment or chip, especially of stone.
  • *1974 , (GB Edwards), The Book of Ebenezer Le Page , New York 2007, p. 13:
  • *:My father knew Bert Le Feuvre, the foreman of Griffith's yard, and there was a little heap of spawls waiting ready every night in summer after school for me to crack.
  • Verb

    (en verb)
  • To break into fragments or small pieces.
  • (Pryce)
  • To reduce, as irregular blocks of stone, to an approximately level surface by hammering.
  • Etymology 2

    From (etyl) spalla.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete, rare) The shoulder.
  • * 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , II.vi:
  • Their mightie strokes their haberieons dismayld, / And naked made each others manly spalles [...].

    Anagrams

    *

    spill

    English

    Verb

  • To drop something so that it spreads out or makes a mess; to pour.
  • I spilled some sticky juice on the kitchen floor.
  • 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.
  • To drop something that was intended to be caught.
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2011 , date=October 29 , author=Neil Johnston , title=Norwich 3 - 3 Blackburn , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=That should have been that, but Hart caught a dose of the Hennessey wobbles and spilled Adlene Guedioura's long-range shot.}}
  • 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.
  • (obsolete) To be destroyed, ruined, or wasted; to come to ruin; to perish; to waste.
  • * Chaucer
  • That thou wilt suffer innocents to spill .
  • To cause to flow out and be lost or wasted; to shed.
  • * Dryden
  • to revenge his blood so justly spilt
  • To cover or decorate with slender pieces of wood, metal, ivory, etc.; to inlay.
  • (Spenser)
  • (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.
  • Derived terms

    * spiller * spill blood * spill one's seed * spill out * spill over * spill the beans

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • (Ayliffe)
  • (Australia, politics) A declaration that the leadership of a parliamentary party is vacant, and open for re-election. Short form of (l)
  • Derived terms

    * spill one's seed * spillway * take a spill

    Anagrams

    * English ergative verbs ---- ==Norwegian Bokmål==

    Alternative forms

    * (l)

    Noun

  • game, play
  • Inflection

    Derived terms

    * (l) * (l) * (l)

    Verb

    (head)
  • See also

    * (spel) ----