spit
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: geography
natural-sciences
Etymology: The noun is from Middle English spit, spite, spete, spette, spyte, spytte (“rod on which meat is cooked; rod used as a torture instrument; short spear; point of a spear; spine in the fin of a fish; pointed object; dagger symbol; land projecting into the sea”), from Old English spitu (“rod on which meat is cooked; spit”), from Proto-Germanic *spitō (“rod; skewer; spike”), *spituz (“rod on which meat is cooked; stick”), from Proto-Indo-European *speyd-, *spey- (“sharp; sharp stick”). The English word is cognate with Dutch spit, Low German Spitt (“pike, spear; spike; skewer; spit”), Danish spid, Swedish spett (“skewer; spit; type of crowbar”).
The verb is derived from the noun, or from Middle English spiten (“to put on a spit; to impale”), from spit, spite: see above. The English verb is cognate with Middle Dutch speten, spitten (modern Dutch speten), Middle Low German speten (Low German spitten, modern German spießen (“to skewer, to spear”), spissen (now dialectal)) and Danish spidde.
Inflected forms:
form: spits
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: spits
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: spitting
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: spitted
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: spitted
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: A thin metal or wooden rod on which meat is skewered for cooking, often over a fire.
pos: noun
examples: They roaſt a fowl, by running a piece of wood through it, by way of ſpit, and holding it over a briſk fire, until the feathers are burnt of, when it is ready for eating, in their taſte.
An Engliſh family in the country, [...] would receive you with an unquiet hoſpitality, and an anxious politeneſs; and after waiting for a hurry-ſcurry derangement of cloth, table, plates, ſideboard, pot and ſpit, would give you perhaps ſo good a dinner, that none of the family, between anxiety and fatigue, could ſupply one word of converſation, and you would depart under cordial wiſhes that you might never return.—This folly, ſo common in England, is never met with in France: [...]
When the joint to be roasted is thicker at one end than the other, place the spit slanting, so that the whole time the thickest part is nearest the fire, and also the thinnest by this means is preserved from being overmuch roasted.
The spits upon which the double sections of fish are transfixed are iron rods about 7 feet long, provided with an L-shaped handle at one end, so that when hung on a bracket at either side of the fireplace it may be turned by hand.
gloss: A generally low, narrow, pointed, usually sandy peninsula or bar.
pos: noun
examples: Sand-spits are unfinished beaches, and long tongues or points of land, formed of sand and shingle, by the transporting action of currents and the waves. In Coldspring harbor, a sand-spit extends from the west shore, obliquely, nearly across. [...] The materials are transported by the currents and waves, and deposited to form this spit.
Or perhaps he may see a group of washerwomen relieved, on a spit of shingle, against the blue sea, [...]
Chiao Shih, 44 feet high, lies about 1/2 mile southeastward of Ko-li, a 199-foot islet, that lies close off the south end of Pei-kan-t’ang Tao and is connected to it by a stoney spit.
Playa margins are dominated by relict shoreline features, such as wave-cut terraces, depositional beach ridges, and offshore bars and spits.
gloss: To impale on a spit; to pierce with a sharp object.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: to spit a loin of veal
[W]hy in a moment looke to ſee / The blind and bloody Souldier, with foule hand / Deſire the Locks of your ſhrill-ſhriking Daughters: / Your Fathers taken by the ſiluer Bears, / And their moſt reuerend Heads daſht to the Walls: / Your naked Infants ſpitted vpon Pykes, / Whiles the mad Mothers, with their howles confus'd, / Doe breake the Clouds, [...] / What ſay you? Will you yeeld, and thus auoyd? / Or guiltie in defence, be thus destroy'd.
Fried or roast mice, spitted on sticks like kebabs, are often offered for sale by the roadside.
[H]e has seen kitchens thrown into turmoil, and he himself has been down in the grey-green hour before dawn, when the brick ovens are swabbed out ready for the first batch of loaves, as carcasses are spitted, pots set on trivets, poultry plucked and jointed.
gloss: To use a spit to cook; to attend to food that is cooking on a spit.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: She’s spitting the roast in the kitchen.
Moll. Ha's my Mother ſeene him yet. / Frail[ty]. O no, ſhee's—ſpitting in the Kitchin.
[H]e saw that the fires scattered all over the massive camp were emitting greasy fumes from the carcasses of the burning animals spitted over the flames.
Related words: skewer
Derived words: sandspit
spitbraai
spit cake
spit engine
Spithead
spit jack
spit of land
turnspit
unspit
spitless
Translations: