Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- In mining, to inflict a fine upon for breach of some rule of the mine.
- To break up.
- noun A chip or splinter of wood.
- noun In ship-building, one of a number of cross-bands fastened temporarily to the frames to keep them in place until properly secured. Also called
spaling .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Prov. Eng. & Scot. A lath; a shaving or chip, as of wood or stone.
- noun (Shipbuilding) A strengthening cross timber.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Scotland A
chip orsplinter of wood. - noun A
lath ; a shaving or chip, as of wood or stone. - noun A strengthening cross
timber . - noun One of a number of cross-bands fastened temprarily to the frames to keep them in place until properly secured; a spaling.
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
From Middle English spale ("splinter"), perhaps partly from Old English *spalu (“flat bar, flake, chip”) or Old Norse spǫlr ("plank, rail, bar, short piece of wood"), both from Proto-Germanic *spaluz (“pole, rod, thin bar, lath”); and partly as an alteration of Old English speld ("ember, flake, torch, splinter, thin piece of wood used as a torch"), from Proto-Germanic *speldan (“that which is split, splinter, board”); both from Proto-Indo-European *(s)pala-, *(s)pel- (“to split in two, split in half”). Cognate with Middle High German spale ("rung of a ladder"; > German dialectal Spale ("a wooden split, wedge")), Swedish dialectal spalu ("splinter"), Norwegian dialectal spel, spela, spila ("a splinter"), Icelandic spölur ("bit, short piece"). See also split.
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Examples
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Lat þine tunge habbe spale. þu wenest þat þes dai bo þinoȝe.
Selections from early Middle English, 1130-1250 Part I: Texts Joseph Hall
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Ef that he was payin '3 dollars a week, I should feel easier, bring your soing an' sett a good long spale. yours truly,
Vesty of the Basins Sarah P. McLean Greene 1895
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"'Deed, Dugald, I'm just taking this bit spale boardie hame below my arm.
Bog-Myrtle and Peat Tales Chiefly of Galloway Gathered from the Years 1889 to 1895 1887
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"Little good, little ill, like a spale amang parritch, was that chap
Mr. Hogarth's Will Catherine Helen Spence 1867
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