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Spell vs Dream - What's the difference?

spell | dream |

As nouns the difference between spell and dream

is that spell is (obsolete) speech, discourse or spell can be (dialectal) a splinter, usually of wood; a spelk or spell can be a shift (of work); a set of workers responsible for a specific turn of labour while dream is imaginary events seen in the mind while sleeping.

As verbs the difference between spell and dream

is that spell is (obsolete) to speak, to declaim or spell can be (obsolete) to read (something) as though letter by letter; to peruse slowly or with effort or spell can be to work in place of (someone) while dream is (lb) to see imaginary events in one's mind while sleeping.

spell

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) spel, spellian, spelian, from (etyl) .

Noun

(en noun)
  • (obsolete) Speech, discourse.
  • Words or a formula supposed to have magical powers.
  • He cast a spell to cure warts.
  • A magical effect or influence induced by an incantation or formula.
  • under a spell
    Synonyms
    * (words or formula supposed to have magical powers) cantrip, incantation * (magical effect induced by an incantation or formula) cantrip

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete) To speak, to declaim.
  • * 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , I.ii:
  • O who can tell / The hidden power of herbes, and might of Magicke spell ?
  • (obsolete) To tell; to relate; to teach.
  • * T. Warton
  • Might I that legend find, / By fairies spelt in mystic rhymes.
  • To put under the influence of a spell; to affect by a spell; to bewitch; to fascinate; to charm.
  • * Dryden
  • Spelled with words of power.
  • * Sir G. Buck
  • He was much spelled with Eleanor Talbot.

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) .

    Verb

  • (obsolete) To read (something) as though letter by letter; to peruse slowly or with effort.
  • * 1851 , :
  • "He'll do," said Bildad, eyeing me, and then went on spelling away at his book in a mumbling tone quite audible.
  • To be able to write or say the letters that form words.
  • I find it difficult to spell because I'm dyslexic.
  • Of letters: to compose (a word).
  • The letters “a”, “n” and “d” spell “and”.
  • * {{quote-book, year=2008, author=Helen Fryer, title=The Esperanto Teacher citation
  • , isbn=9780554320076, page=13, publisher=BiblioBazaar, LLC, passage=In Esperanto each letter has only one sound, and each sound is represented in only one way. The words are pronounced exactly as spelt , every letter being sounded.}}
  • (figuratively) To indicate that (some event) will occur.
  • This spells trouble.
  • Please spell it out for me.
  • * 2003 , U.S. Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbel, Hearing before the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation , ISBN 1422334120:
  • When we get elected, for instance, we get one of these, and we are pretty much told what is in it, and it is our responsibility to read it and understand it, and if we do not, the Ethics Committee, we can call them any time of day and ask them to spell it out for us
  • To constitute; to measure.
  • * Fuller
  • the Saxon heptarchy, when seven kings put together did spell but one in effect
    Derived terms
    * speller * spelling * spello
    Synonyms
    * (to indicate that some event will occur) forebode; mean; signify * (to work in place of someone else) relieve * (to compose a word) (informal) comprise

    Etymology 3

    Origin uncertain; perhaps a form of (speld).

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (dialectal) A splinter, usually of wood; a spelk.
  • (Holland)

    Etymology 4

    From (etyl) spelen, from (etyl) .

    Verb

  • To work in place of (someone).
  • to spell the helmsman
  • To rest (someone or something).
  • They spelled the horses and rested in the shade of some trees near a brook.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A shift (of work); a set of workers responsible for a specific turn of labour.
  • A period of (work or other activity).
  • *
  • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=A chap named Eleazir Kendrick and I had chummed in together the summer afore and built a fish-weir and shanty at Setuckit Point, down Orham way. For a spell we done pretty well. Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand.}}
  • * {{quote-news, year=2012, date=April 22, author=Sam Sheringham, work=BBC Sport
  • , title= Liverpool 0-1 West Brom , passage=Despite his ill-fated spell at Anfield, he received a warm reception from the same Liverpool fans he struggled to win over before being sacked midway through last season.}}
  • An indefinite period of time (usually with some qualifying word).
  • * 1975 , (Bob Dylan), (Tangled Up in Blue)
  • I had a job in the great North Woods
    Workin' as a cook for a spell .
    But I never did like it all that much
    And one day the ax just fell.
  • A period of rest; time off.
  • (US) A period of illness, or sudden interval of bad spirits, disease etc.
  • (cricket) An uninterrupted series of alternate overs bowled by a single bowler.
  • Derived terms
    * dry spell * set a spell

    Anagrams

    * 1000 English basic words ----

    dream

    English

    (wikipedia dream)

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) (m), from (etyl) . The derivation from Old English dr?am'' is controversial, since the word itself is only attested in writing in its meaning of “joy, mirth, musical sound”. Possibly there was a separate word ''dr?am meaning “images seen while sleeping”, which was avoided in literature due to potential confusion with “joy” sense, which would account for the common definition in the other Germanic languages, or the derivation may indeed simply be a strange progression from “mirth, joy, musical sound”.. Attested words for “sleeping vision” in Old English were . The verb is from (etyl) (m), possibly (see above) from (etyl) .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Imaginary events seen in the mind while sleeping.
  • * (John Dryden) (1631-1700)
  • Dreams are but interludes which fancy makes.
  • * (Lord Byron) (1788-1824)
  • I had a dream' which was not all a ' dream .
  • *
  • She wakened in sharp panic, bewildered by the grotesquerie of some half-remembered dream in contrast with the harshness of inclement fact, drowsily realising that since she had fallen asleep it had come on to rain smartly out of a shrouded sky.
  • A hope or wish.
  • *
  • So this was my future home, I thought!Backed by towering hills, the but faintly discernible purple line of the French boundary off to the southwest, a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams .
  • * (Martin Luther King)
  • I have a dream' that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a ' dream today!
  • * {{quote-news, year=2012, date=August 5, author=Nathan Rabin
  • , title= TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “I Love Lisa” (season 4, episode 15; originally aired 02/11/1993) , passage=Ralph Wiggum is generally employed as a bottomless fount of glorious non sequiturs, but in “I Love Lisa” he stands in for every oblivious chump who ever deluded himself into thinking that with persistence, determination, and a pure heart he can win the girl of his dreams .}}
  • A visionary scheme; a wild conceit; an idle fancy.
  • * (Alexander Pope) (1688-1744)
  • There sober thought pursued the amusing theme, / Till Fancy coloured it and formed a dream .
  • * (w) (1819-1885)
  • It is not to them a mere dream , but a very real aim which they propose.

    Synonyms

    * (events experienced whilst asleep) sweven (archaic)

    Derived terms

    * American dream * daydream * dreamboat * dreamcatcher * dreamland * dreamscape * dream team * dreamy * dream vision * dreamworld * live the dream * lucid dream * pipe dream * wet dream

    See also

    * nightmare

    Verb

  • (lb) To see imaginary events in one's mind while sleeping.
  • (lb) To hope, to wish.
  • (lb) To daydream.
  • :
  • (lb) To envision as an imaginary experience (usually when asleep).
  • :
  • *(and other bibliographic particulars) (Cowper)
  • *:And still they dream that they shall still succeed.
  • *(and other bibliographic particulars) (Dryden)
  • *:At length in sleep their bodies they compose, / And dreamt the future fight, and early rose.
  • (lb) To consider the possibility (of).
  • :
  • *1599-1602 , (William Shakespeare), (Hamlet) , Act I scene 5, lines 167-8
  • *:There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
  • *
  • *:But then I had the [massive] flintlock by me for protection. ¶, and a 'bead' could be drawn upon Molly, the dairymaid, kissing the fogger behind the hedge, little dreaming that the deadly tube was levelled at them.
  • Derived terms

    * bedream * dream up * dream on

    Usage notes

    * "Dreamt" is less common in both US and UK English in current usage, though somewhat more prevalent in the UK than in the US. "Drempt" is quite rare, possibly just eye-dialect.

    References