Spill vs Strew - What's the difference?
spill | strew |
To drop something so that it spreads out or makes a mess; to pour.
To spread out or fall out, as above.
* Isaac Watts
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
To mar; to damage; to destroy by misuse; to waste.
* Puttenham
* Fuller
(obsolete) To be destroyed, ruined, or wasted; to come to ruin; to perish; to waste.
* Chaucer
To cause to flow out and be lost or wasted; to shed.
* Dryden
To cover or decorate with slender pieces of wood, metal, ivory, etc.; to inlay.
(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.
(countable) A mess of something that has been dropped.
A fall or stumble.
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 :
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.
(Australia, politics) A declaration that the leadership of a parliamentary party is vacant, and open for re-election. Short form of (l)
game, play
To distribute objects or pieces of something over an area, especially in a random manner.
* , Romeo and Juliet , act 5, sc. 3:
* Dryden
* Beaconsfield
To cover, or lie upon, by having been scattered.
* Spenser
* Alexander Pope
To spread abroad; to disseminate.
* Shakespeare
In transitive terms the difference between spill and strew
is that spill is to drop something that was intended to be caught while strew is to spread abroad; to disseminate.As a noun spill
is a mess of something that has been dropped.spill
English
Verb
- I spilled some sticky juice on the kitchen floor.
- Some sticky juice spilled onto the kitchen floor.
- He was so topful of himself, that he let it spill on all the company.
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- They [the colours] disfigure the stuff and spill the whole workmanship.
- Spill not the morning, the quintessence of day, in recreations.
- That thou wilt suffer innocents to spill .
- to revenge his blood so justly spilt
- (Spenser)
Derived terms
* spiller * spill blood * spill one's seed * spill out * spill over * spill the beansNoun
(en noun)- The bruise is from a bad spill he had last week.
- Kit froze with the pipe between his teeth, the relit spill pressed to the weed within it.
- (Ayliffe)
Quotations
* (English Citations of "spill")Derived terms
* spill one's seed * spillway * take a spillAnagrams
* English ergative verbs ---- ==Norwegian Bokmål==Alternative forms
* (l)Noun
Inflection
Derived terms
* (l) * (l) * (l)Verb
(head)See also
* (spel) ----strew
English
Alternative forms
* (l) * (l) (dialectal)Verb
- to strew sand over a floor
- Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew .
- And strewed his mangled limbs about the field.
- On a principal table a desk was open and many papers strewn about.
- Leaves strewed the ground.
- The snow which does the top of Pindus strew .
- Is thine alone the seed that strews the plain?
- She may strew dangerous conjectures.