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Spill vs Lick - What's the difference?

spill | lick |

As verbs the difference between spill and lick

is that spill is to drop something so that it spreads out or makes a mess; to pour while lick is to stroke with the tongue.

As nouns the difference between spill and lick

is that spill is a mess of something that has been dropped while lick is the act of licking; a stroke of the tongue.

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)

    • Quotations

    * (English Citations of "spill")

    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) ----

    lick

    English

    (licking)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The act of licking; a stroke of the tongue.
    • The cat gave its fur a lick .
  • The amount of some substance obtainable with a single lick.
    • Give me a lick of ice cream.
  • A quick and careless application of anything, as if by a stroke of the tongue, or of something which acts like a tongue.
    • a lick''' of paint; to put on colours with a '''lick of the brush
  • * Gray
    • a lick of court white wash
  • A place where animals lick minerals from the ground.
    • The birds gathered at the clay lick .
  • A small watercourse or ephemeral stream. It ranks between a rill and a stream.
    • We used to play in the lick .
  • (colloquial) A stroke or blow.
    • Hit that wedge a good lick with the sledgehammer.
  • (colloquial) A bit.
    • You don't have a lick of sense.
    I didn't do a lick of work today.
  • (music) A short motif.
    • There are some really good blues licks in this solo.
  • speed. In this sense it is always qualified by good', or ' fair or a similar adjective.
    • The bus was travelling at a good lick when it swerved and left the road.

    Synonyms

    * (bit) see also .

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To stroke with the tongue.
    • The cat licked its fur.
  • (colloquial) To defeat decisively, particularly in a fight.
    • My dad can lick your dad.
  • (colloquial) To overcome.
    • I think I can lick this.
  • (vulgar, slang) To perform cunnilingus.
  • (colloquial) To do anything partially.
  • To lap
  • * 1895 , H. G. Wells, The Time Machine Chapter XI
    • Now, in this decadent age the art of fire-making had been altogether forgotten on the earth. The red tongues that went licking up my heap of wood were an altogether new and strange thing to Weena.
  • To lap; to take in with the tongue.
    • A cat licks milk.
    (Shakespeare)

    Derived terms

    * ass-licker * cow lick * good lick * lick one's chops * lick one's wounds * lick out * lickspittle * lick up * licked * lickety split * outlick