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Spray vs Spay - What's the difference?

spray | spay |

As nouns the difference between spray and spay

is that spray is a fine, gentle, dispersed mist of liquid while spay is rare spelling of lang=en.

As verbs the difference between spray and spay

is that spray is {{cx|transitive|lang=en}} To project a liquid in a dispersive manner while spay is to remove or destroy the ovaries (of an animal) so that it cannot become pregnant.

spray

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A fine, gentle, dispersed mist of liquid.
  • The sailor could feel the spray from the waves.
  • A small branch of flowers or berries.
  • The bridesmaid carried a spray of lily-of-the-valley.
  • * Dryden
  • The painted birds, companions of the spring, / Hopping from spray to spray, were heard to sing.
  • A collective body of small branches.
  • The tree has a beautiful spray .
  • * Spenser
  • And from the trees did lop the needless spray .
  • A pressurized container; an atomizer.
  • Any of numerous commercial products, including paints, cosmetics, and insecticides, that are dispensed from containers in this manner.
  • (medicine) A jet of fine medicated vapour, used either as an application to a diseased part or to charge the air of a room with a disinfectant or a deodorizer.
  • (metalworking) A side channel or branch of the runner of a flask, made to distribute the metal to all parts of the mold.
  • (metalworking) A group of castings made in the same mold and connected by sprues formed in the runner and its branches.
  • (Knight)

    Derived terms

    * body spray * bug spray * capiscum spray * cooking spray * feather spray * fly spray * hair spray * pepper spray * spray bottle * spray can * spray condenser * spray drain * spray gun * spray paint * vanishing spray

    Verb

  • To project a liquid in a dispersive manner.
  • (figurative) To project many small items dispersively.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-14, author=(Jonathan Freedland)
  • , volume=189, issue=1, page=18, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Obama's once hip brand is now tainted , passage=Now we are liberal with our innermost secrets, spraying them into the public ether with a generosity our forebears could not have imagined. Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet.}}
  • To allocate blocks of memory from (a heap, etc.), and fill them with the same byte sequence, hoping to establish that sequence in a certain predetermined location as part of an exploit.
  • to spray the heap of a target process

    Derived terms

    * * sprayable

    Anagrams

    * prays, raspy ----

    spay

    English

    Etymology 1

    From the (etyl) espeier, equivalent to the (etyl) .

    Alternative forms

    * (l) * (l)

    Verb

  • To remove or destroy the ovaries (of an animal) so that it cannot become pregnant.
  • Synonyms
    * castrate, emasculate (for a male) * geld * neuter * sterilize (used for all species and for both genders)

    References

    * “ spay, v.'']” listed in the '' [2nd Ed.; 1989

    Etymology 2

    See spayard.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • References

    * “ spay]” listed as a variant spelling of “[http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50232517 spaya(r)d, spayd]”, listed in the Oxford English Dictionary [2nd Ed.; 1989