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!

Verb

To ascend; rise; to go up.

Prices climbed steeply.

* Dryden

Black vapours climb aloft, and cloud the day.

To mount; to move upwards on.

They climbed the mountain.

Climbing a tree

To scale; to get to the top of something.

* {{quote-news, year=2010, date=May 22, author=David Harrison

, title=American boy, 13, is youngest person to climb Everest , work=Daily Telegraph online citation , page= , passage=He is a curly-haired schoolboy barely in his teens, but 13-year-old Jordan Romero from California has become the youngest person to climb Mount Everest.}}

To move (especially up and down something) by gripping with the hands and using the feet.

* 1900 , (James Frazer), (The Golden Bough) Chapter 65

A priest clad in a white robe climbs the tree and with a golden sickle cuts the mistletoe, which is caught in a white cloth.

* 1900 , , ''(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz)

She thought she must have been mistaken at first, for none of the scarecrows in Kansas ever wink; but presently the figure nodded its head to her in a friendly way. Then she climbed down from the fence and walked up to it, while Toto ran around the pole and barked.

* 2008 , Tony Atkins, Dragonhawk - the Turning

Cutter and Bolan climbed around the furniture and piled into the back of the truck.

to practise the sport of climbing

to jump high

* {{quote-news, year=2010, date=December 28

, author=Paul Fletcher, title=Man City 4 - 0 Aston Villa, work=BBC citation , page= , passage=The defender climbed majestically at the near post to convert Johnson's corner. }}

* {{quote-news, year=2008, date=September 13

, title=Ospreys Glasgow Magners League, work=South Wales Evening Post citation , page= , passage=As the game moved towards injury time, the Ospreys forced a line-out which Jonathan Thomas climbed high to take.}}

* {{quote-news, year=2001, date=December 29, author=Derick Allsop

, title=Bolton's nine men hit back to steal a point, work=Daily Telegraph online citation , page= , passage=Four minutes of stoppage time were virtually up when Ricketts climbed to head in the equaliser from substitute Nicky Southall's centre.}}

To move to a higher position on the social ladder.

(botany) Of plants, to grow upwards by clinging to something.