Noun

(uncountable) The act, practice, ability, or subject of forming words with letters, or of reading the letters of words; orthography.

* 1904 , , Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White , p 43:

For the practical use of spelling comes in writing.

* 1920 , Henry Gallup Paine, Handbook of Simplified Spelling , New York: Simplified Spelling Board, p 1:

Spelling was invented by man and, like other human inventions, is capable of development and improvement by man in the direction of simplicity, economy, and efficiency.

* 2001 , , The Program , New York: Dell, p 66:

I knew that Kriciak, the inspector who was supervising me for the Marshals Service, was going to go nuts when I told him that I wanted to allow Landon to participate in soccer and spelling .

(uncountable) The manner of spelling of words; correct spelling.

* 2006 , Wm. Shakespeare, Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor, eds., Hamlet , London: Arden Shakespeare:

[p 88] Because Elizabethan spelling' was fluid, editors feel free to ‘modernize’ (correct) the '''spelling''' in the quartos and the Folio. But how is one to spell Rosencratz or Guildenstern, where the ' spelling varies, not only from text to text, but even within texts?

(countable) A specific spelling of a word.

* 2006 , Wm. Shakespeare, Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor, eds., Hamlet , London: Arden Shakespeare:

[p 253] *excellent'  Q2’s ‘extent’ is generally dismissed as an error, probably a mis-reading of ‘exlent’, a common ' spelling at this time.

[p 269] reverend   The spellings ‘reuerent’ (Q2) and ‘Reuerend’ (F) were interchangeable at this time.

[p 466] Guildensterne and Rosincrance are F’s consistent spellings .

(US, rare, dated, countable, or, uncountable) A spelling test or spelling bee.

* 1860 , , The Colonel's Diary: Journals Kept Before and During the Civil War [1922], Sharon, Penn., p 23:

The boys were anxious for a spelling in the evening but I said no.

* 1889 , , “A’ Old Played-Out Song”, in Pipes O' Pan at Zekesbury , Indianapolis, Ind.: Bowen-Merrill, p 45:

How her face ust to look, in the twilight, / As I tuck her to spellin’ ; and she / Kep’ a-hummin’ that song ’tel I ast her, / Pine-blank, ef she ever missed me!

* 2004 , Carl Lindahl, ed., American Folktales: From the Collections of the Library of Congress , v 1, Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, p 416:

So we'd sit with these girls during school hours, and we told them, if they'd slip off, that we'd get away, and we'd go to [the school] to a spelling .

Noun

(en noun)

The state of being swollen.

* {{quote-book

, year= a1420 , year_published= 1894 , author= The British Museum Additional MS, 12,056 , by= (Lanfranc of Milan) , title= Lanfranc's "Science of cirurgie." , url= http://books.google.com/books?id=6XktAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA63 , original= , chapter= Wounds complicated by the Dislocation of a Bone , section= , isbn= 1163911380 , edition= , publisher= K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co , location= London , editor= Robert von Fleischhacker , volume= , page= 63 , passage= Ne take noon hede to brynge togidere þe parties of þe boon þat is to-broken or dislocate, til viij. daies ben goon in þe wyntir, & v. in þe somer; for þanne it schal make quytture, and be sikir from swellynge ; & þanne brynge togidere þe brynkis eiþer þe disiuncture after þe techynge þat schal be seid in þe chapitle of algebra. }}

Anything swollen, especially any abnormally swollen part of the body.