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Spread vs Billow - What's the difference?

spread | billow |

As verbs the difference between spread and billow

is that spread is to stretch out, open out (a material etc) so that it more fully covers a given area of space while billow is to surge or roll in billows.

As nouns the difference between spread and billow

is that spread is the act of spreading or something that has been spread while billow is a large wave, swell, surge, or undulating mass of something, such as water, smoke, fabric or sound.

spread

English

Verb

  • To stretch out, open out (a material etc.) so that it more fully covers a given area of space.
  • To extend (individual rays, limbs etc.); to stretch out in varying or opposing directions.
  • To disperse, to scatter or distribute over a given area.
  • To proliferate; to become more widely present, to be disseminated.
  • *
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
    • , title= Old soldiers? , passage=Whether modern, industrial man is less or more warlike than his hunter-gatherer ancestors is impossible to determine.
  • To disseminate; to cause to proliferate, to make (something) widely known or present.
  • To take up a larger area or space; to expand, be extended.
  • To smear, to distribute in a thin layer.
  • To cover (something) with a thin layer of some substance, as of butter.
  • To prepare; to set and furnish with provisions.
    • to spread a table
  • * Tennyson
    • Boiled the flesh, and spread the board.
  • (slang) To open one’s legs.
  • * 1984 , (Martin Amis), :
    • This often sounds like the rap of a demented DJ: the way she moves has got to be good news, can't get loose till I feel the juice— suck and spread , bitch, yeah bounce for me baby.
  • * 1991 , (Tori Amos), (Me and a Gun) :
    • Yes I wore a slinky red thing. Does that mean I should spread for you, your friends, your father, Mr Ed?
  • * 2003 , (Outkast), "Spread" (from the album ):
    • I don't want to move too fast, but / Can't resist your sexy ass / Just spread', ' spread for me; / (I can't, I can't wait to get you home)

    Synonyms

    * disseminate * circulate * propagate * put about

    Derived terms

    * spread betting

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The act of spreading or something that has been spread.
  • * Francis Bacon
    • No flower hath spread like that of the woodbine.
  • An expanse of land.
  • * Addison
    • I have got a fine spread of improvable land.
  • A large tract of land used to raise livestock; a cattle ranch.
  • * 2005 , , 00:11:50:
    • - Can’t wait till I get my own spread and won’t have to put up with Joe Aguirre’s crap no more.
    - I’m savin’ for a place myself.
  • A piece of material used as a cover (such as a bedspread).
  • A large meal, especially one laid out on a table.
  • Any form of food designed to be spread such as butters or jams
  • An item in a newspaper or magazine that occupies more than one column or page.
  • A numerical difference.
  • (business, economics) The difference between the wholesale and retail prices.
  • (trading, economics, finance) The difference between the price of a futures month and the price of another month of the same commodity.
  • (trading, finance) The purchase of a futures contract of one delivery month against the sale of another futures delivery month of the same commodity.
  • (trading, finance) The purchase of one delivery month of one commodity against the sale of that same delivery month of a different commodity.
  • (trading) An arbitrage transaction of the same commodity in two markets, executed to take advantage of a profit from price discrepancies.
  • (trading) The difference between bidding and asking price.
  • (finance) The difference between the prices of two similar items.
  • (geometry) An unlimited expanse of discontinuous points.

    • Synonyms

    * straddle

    Statistics

    *

    External links

    * *

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    * * * * * * * English irregular past participles English irregular simple past forms English irregular verbs English past participles English verb simple past forms English verb forms using redundant wikisyntax 1000 English basic words

    billow

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A large wave, swell, surge, or undulating mass of something, such as water, smoke, fabric or sound
  • * Cowper
    • whom the winds waft where'er the billows roll
  • * 18?? , :
    • And the brooklet has found the billow / Though they flowed so far apart.
  • * 1922 , :
    • Have the swirling sands engulfed them, on a noon of storm when the desert rose like the sea, and rolled its tawny billows on the walled gardens of the green and fragrant lands?

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To surge or roll in billows
  • * 1920 , , The Understanding Heart , Chapter II:
    • During the preceding afternoon a heavy North Pacific fog had blown in … Scudding eastward from the ocean, it had crept up and over the redwood-studded crests of the Coast Range mountains,
  • To swell out or bulge

    • References