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Spell vs Rune - What's the difference?

spell | rune |

As nouns the difference between spell and rune

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 rune is air-hole (of a chimney).

As a verb 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).

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
    Related terms
    * spellbind * spellbound * spellwork
    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

    Quotations

    * (English Citations of "spell")

    Anagrams

    * 1000 English basic words ----

    rune

    English

    (runes)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A letter, or character, belonging to the written language of various ancient Germanic peoples, especially the Scandinavians and the Anglo-Saxons.
  • A Finnish poem, or a division of one, especially a division of the Kalevala.
  • Any verse or song, especially one with mystical or mysterious overtones; an incantation.
  • * 1891 , Mary Noailles Murfree, In the "Stranger People's" Country , Nebraska 2005, page 15:
    • the fiddle sang and sang as ceaselessly as the chanting cicada without, and the frogs intoning their sylvan runes by the waterside.
  • (obsolete) A roun.

    • Derived terms

    * runecraft * runelore * runester * runology, runologist

    Anagrams

    * ----