Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A post used as a foundation; a pile.
- noun A wooden plug; a bung.
- noun A spout used in taking sap from a tree.
- transitive verb To support with a spile.
- transitive verb To plug or tap with a spile.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To play.
- To pierce with a small hole and stop the same with a plug, spigot, or the like: said of a cask of liquid.
- To set with piles or piling.
- A dialectal form of
spoil . - noun A solid wooden plug used as a spigot.
- noun A wooden or metal spout driven into a sugar-maple tree to eonduct the sap or sugar-water to a pan or bucket placed beneath it; a tapping-gouge.
- noun In ship-building, a small wooden pin used as a plug for a nail-hole.
- noun A narrow-pointed wedge used in tubbing.
- noun A pile: same as
pile , 3.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A small plug or wooden pin, used to stop a vent, as in a cask.
- noun A small tube or spout inserted in a tree for conducting sap, as from a sugar maple.
- noun A large stake driven into the ground as a support for some superstructure; a pile.
- noun a small air hole in a cask; a vent.
- transitive verb To supply with a spile or a spigot; to make a small vent in, as a cask.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
pile ; apost or girder. - verb To
support by means of spiles. - verb US, dialect, transitive, intransitive
spoil . - noun A
splinter . - noun A
spigot orplug used to stop the hole in abarrel orcask . - noun US A spout inserted in a
maple (or other tree) to draw offsap . - verb To
plug (a hole) with a spile. - verb To
draw off (a liquid) using a spile. - verb To provide (a barrel, tree etc.) with a spile.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a plug used to close a hole in a barrel or flask
- noun a column of wood or steel or concrete that is driven into the ground to provide support for a structure
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
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Examples
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Maple Tree This tool is called a spile, and the sap drips through it.
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A firkin, as the reader probably knows, is the least compromising of casks, and Mr Latter regularly attended in person to "spile" it.
Nicky-Nan, Reservist Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch 1903
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The first thing the cellarman does is drive a soft spile into the top vent of the cask.
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Just seems no real cure to seeing the sputtering spile bunged
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Unions are to blame cause some sputtering spile slipped its bung.
Think Progress » Maddow Corrects GOP Rep. Schock On Basic Facts Of Abdulmuttalab Case 2010
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The first thing the cellarman does is drive a soft spile into the top vent of the cask.
Donavan Hall 2008
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As hunted l4 days and saw oly l small spile W-tail amdonly 2 Mule Deer Bucks (I got one), no Elk period.
Flying with Guns 2008
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Then he hammered a small metal spile into the hole, which was already wet with sap.
The Dirty Life Kristin Kimball 2010
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The first thing the cellarman does is drive a soft spile into the top vent of the cask.
LENNDEVOURS: 2008
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The first thing the cellarman does is drive a soft spile into the top vent of the cask.
yarb commented on the word spile
...mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads...
- Melville, Moby-Dick, ch. 1
July 23, 2008
bilby commented on the word spile
"It's that time of year again. We have made maple syrup and sometimes wine every year since we have lived out here. This year we tapped 23 Silver Maple trees and just started collecting the sap.
This nifty gadget is called a spile and fits into a hole drilled into the tree. The hook on top allows a bucket or sap sack to be hung directly from it."
- Jack Schmidling, 'Maple Syrup', schmidling.com.
October 21, 2008
fbharjo commented on the word spile
piles of spile
June 14, 2012