spur
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: architecture
biology
botany
business
carpentry
construction
geography
geology
manufacturing
mining
natural-sciences
rail-transport
railways
shipbuilding
transport
Etymology: From Middle English spure, spore, from Old English spora, spura, from Proto-West Germanic *spurō, from Proto-Germanic *spurô, from Proto-Indo-European *sperH- (“to kick”).
Inflected forms:
form: spurs
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: spurs
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: spurring
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: spurred
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: spurred
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: A rigid implement, often roughly y-shaped, that is fixed to one's heel for the purpose of prodding a horse. Often worn by, and emblematic of, the cowboy or the knight.
pos: noun
examples: Lives he, good uncle? thrice within this hour I saw him down; thrice up again, and fighting; From helmet to the spur all blood he was.
Tvvo ſorts of ſpurs ſeem to have been in uſe about the time of the Conqueſt, one called a pryck, having only a ſingle point like the gaffle of a fighting cock; the other conſiſting of a number of points of a conſiderable length, radiating from and revolving on a center, thence named the rouelle or vvheel ſpur.
gloss: A jab given with the spurs.
pos: noun
examples: I had hardly said the word, when Kit jumped into the saddle, and gave his horse a whip and a spur — and off it cantered, as if it were in as great a hurry to be married as Kit himself.
gloss: Anything that inspires or motivates, as a spur does a horse.
pos: noun
tags: figuratively
examples: She is a theame of honour and renowne, / A ſpurre to valiant and magnanimous deeds, / Whoſe preſent courage may beate downe our foes, / And fame in time to come canonize us, [...]
gloss: An appendage or spike pointing rearward, near the foot, for instance that of a rooster.
pos: noun
gloss: Any protruding part connected at one end, for instance a highway that extends from another highway into a city.
pos: noun
gloss: Roots, tree roots.
pos: noun
examples: […] the strong-bas'd promontory / Have I made shake; and by the spurs pluck'd up / The pine and cedar […]
I do note / That grief and patience, rooted in them both, / Mingle their spurs together.
gloss: A mountain that shoots from another mountain or range and extends some distance in a lateral direction, or at right angles.
pos: noun
examples: But a narrow spur of rocks arched out and over the hole, ending in an outcrop perhaps a hundred feet across.
gloss: A spiked iron worn by seamen upon the bottom of the boot, to enable them to stand upon the carcass of a whale to strip off the blubber.
pos: noun
gloss: A brace strengthening a post and some connected part, such as a rafter or crossbeam; a strut.
pos: noun
gloss: The short wooden buttress of a post.
pos: noun
gloss: A projection from the round base of a column, occupying the angle of a square plinth upon which the base rests, or bringing the bottom bed of the base to a nearly square form. It is generally carved in leafage.
pos: noun
gloss: Ergotized rye or other grain.
pos: noun
gloss: A wall in a fortification that crosses a part of a rampart and joins to an inner wall.
pos: noun
gloss: A piece of timber fixed on the bilgeways before launching, having the upper ends bolted to the vessel's side.
pos: noun
gloss: A curved piece of timber serving as a half to support the deck where a whole beam cannot be placed.
pos: noun
gloss: A branch of a vein.
pos: noun
gloss: A very short branch line of a railway line.
pos: noun
gloss: A short branch road of a motorway, freeway or major road.
pos: noun
gloss: A short thin side shoot from a branch, especially one that bears fruit or, in conifers, the shoots that bear the leaves.
pos: noun
gloss: To prod (especially a horse) on the side or flank, with the intent to urge motion or haste, to gig.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head! Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood; Amaze the welkin with your broken staves!
gloss: To urge or encourage to action, or to a more vigorous pursuit of an object
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: My desire / (More sharp than filed steel) did spur me forth...
But the latest Santa Fe development, while not spurring the Rock Island to any further acceleration, has drawn fire from a totally unexpected quarter.
What is unbearable, in fact, is the feeling, 13 years after 9/11, that America has been chasing its tail; that, in some whack-a-mole horror show, the quashing of a jihadi enclave here only spurs the sprouting of another there; that the ideology of Al Qaeda is still reverberating through a blocked Arab world whose Sunni-Shia balance (insofar as that went) was upended by the American invasion of Iraq.
gloss: To put spurs on.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: to spur boots
gloss: To press forward; to travel in great haste.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
gloss: To form a spur (senses 17-18 of the noun)
pos: verb
examples: It spurs off the Robin Hood line, providing ten miles of single-line test track with a three-mile double section, capable of testing up to 75mph.
Derived words: bone spur
cockspur
footspur
forespur
great spur wheel
hotspur
knight's spur
larkspur
longspur
mastspore
Prince of Wales spur
sandspur
spur cell
spurdog
spurflower
spurfowl
spurgall
spur gear
spur gearing
spur-heeled
spur leather
spur-leather
spurless
spurlet
spurlike
spurmaker
spurmaking
spur-of-the-moment
spur of the moment
spurrier
spur road
spur-royal
spur-shell
spur-throated grasshopper
spur-throated locust
spur valerian
spur-way
spur-wheel
spurwing
spurwinged
spur-winged
spur-winged goose
spur-winged lapwing
spur-winged plover
spurwort
twinspur
under-spur-leather
whip and spur
spurrer
spur on
Translations: