spill

Meanings

Verb

• To drop something so that it spreads out or makes a mess; to accidentally pour.
• To spread out or fall out, as above.
• To drop something that was intended to be caught.
• To mar; to damage; to destroy by misuse; to waste.
• To be destroyed, ruined, or wasted; to come to ruin; to perish; to waste.
• To cause to flow out and be lost or wasted; to shed.
• To cause to be thrown from a mount, a carriage, etc.
• To cover or decorate with slender pieces of wood, metal, ivory, etc.; to inlay.
• 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.
• To open the leadership of a parliamentary party for re-election.
• To reveal information to an uninformed party.
• To come undone.

Noun

• A mess of something that has been dropped.
• A fall or stumble.
• A small stick or piece of paper used to light a candle, cigarette etc by the transfer of a flame from a fire.
• A slender piece of anything.
• One of the thick laths or poles driven horizontally ahead of the main timbering in advancing a level in loose ground.
• The situation where sound is picked up by a microphone from a source other than that which is intended.
• A small sum of money.
• A declaration that the leadership of a parliamentary party is vacant, and open for re-election. Short form of leadership spill.

Origin

• From Middle English spillen, from Old English spillan, spildan, 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 , Bavarian spillen ("to split, cleave, splinter"), Danish spille ("to spill, waste"), Swedish spilla ("to spill, waste"), Icelandic spilla ("to contaminate, spoil").