Word: spill Part of Speech: verb Etymology: From Middle English spillen, from Old English spillan, spildan (“to kill, destroy, waste”), from Proto-West Germanic *spilþijan, from Proto-Germanic *spilþijaną (“to spoil, kill, murder”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)pel- (“to sunder, split, rend, tear”). Cognate with Dutch spillen (“to use needlessly, waste”), French gaspiller ("to waste, squander" < Germanic), Bavarian spillen (“to split, cleave, splinter”), Danish spilde (“to spill, waste”), Swedish spilla (“to spill, waste”), Icelandic spilla (“to contaminate, spoil”). See also spool. Pronunciation: /spɪl/, [spɪɫ], [spɪo̯], [spɪʊ̯] 1. To drop something so that it spreads out or makes a mess; to accidentally pour. Labels: transitive Example: I spilled some sticky juice on the kitchen floor. 2. To spread out or fall out, as above. Labels: intransitive Example: Some sticky juice spilled onto the kitchen floor. Example: He was so topful of himself, that he let it spill on all the company. 3. To overflow out of a designated area. Labels: intransitive Example: The crowd spilled onto Maple Avenue. 4. To drop something that was intended to be caught. Labels: transitive Example: That should have been that, but Hart caught a dose of the Hennessey wobbles and spilled Adlene Guedioura's long-range shot. 5. To mar; to damage; to destroy by misuse; to waste. Example: They [the colours] disfigure the stuff and spill the whole workmanship. Example: Spill not the morning (the quintessence of day) in recreations. 6. To be destroyed, ruined, or wasted; to come to ruin; to perish; to waste. Labels: intransitive, obsolete Example: That thou wilt suffer innocence to spill. Example: This winter’s weather it waxeth cold, / And frost it freezeth on every hill, / And Boreas blows his blast so bold / That all our cattle are like to spill. 7. To overflow or flow out, over or off something. Labels: also, figuratively, intransitive Example: Liverpool Street's 1985-92 remodelling by the British Rail Architects' Department (under project lead Nick Derbyshire) had carefully followed original 1870s detailing, with the concourse designed to allow natural light to spill into the station. 8. To cause or flow out and be lost or wasted; to shed. Labels: transitive Example: to revenge his Blood, ſo juſtly ſpilt, / VVhat is it leſs then to partake his guilt? Example: The cracking sound, he explained, as far as I, a non-plumber, could understand, was the sound of the overworked, undermaintained and weirdly installed heating unit’s core rupturing and spilling water into the basement. 9. To cause to be thrown from a mount, a carriage, etc. Labels: obsolete, slang, transitive Example: Then, not thirty feet beyond, a sudden panicky lunge to the side by his horse spilled him from the saddle. 10. To cover or decorate with slender pieces of wood, metal, ivory, etc.; to inlay. Example: And all the others pavement were with yvory spilt 11. 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. 12. To open the leadership of a parliamentary party for re-election. Labels: Australian, transitive 13. To reveal information to an uninformed party. Labels: ambitransitive Example: He spilled his guts out to his new psychologist. Example: ‘You wanted to know where we were going. Follow me. I’m going to spill it.’ 14. To come undone. 15. To express (something), especially repeatedly or floridly; to be expressed. Labels: transitive Example: He spilled insults about the other team. Example: Praise spilled from him every day.