spur

Meanings

Noun

• 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.
• A jab given with the spurs.
• Anything that inspires or motivates, as a spur does a horse.
• An appendage or spike pointing rearward, near the foot, for instance that of a rooster.
• Any protruding part connected at one end, for instance a highway that extends from another highway into a city.
• Roots, tree roots.
• A mountain that shoots from another mountain or range and extends some distance in a lateral direction, or at right angles.
• 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.
• A brace strengthening a post and some connected part, such as a rafter or crossbeam; a strut.
• The short wooden buttress of a post.
• 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.
• Ergotized rye or other grain.
• A wall in a fortification that crosses a part of a rampart and joins to an inner wall.
• A piece of timber fixed on the bilgeways before launching, having the upper ends bolted to the vessel's side.
• A curved piece of timber serving as a half to support the deck where a whole beam cannot be placed.
• A branch of a vein.
• A very short branch line of a railway line.
• A short branch road of a motorway, freeway or major road.
• A short thin side shoot from a branch, especially one that bears fruit or, in conifers, the shoots that bear the leaves.
• A tern.
• A spurious tone, one that interferes with a signal in a circuit and is often masked underneath that signal.
• The track of an animal, such as an otter; a spoor.

Verb

• To prod (especially a horse) on the side or flank, with the intent to urge motion or haste, to gig.
• To urge or encourage to action, or to a more vigorous pursuit of an object
• To put spurs on.
• To press forward; to travel in great haste.
• To form a spur
• Alternative of speer.

Origin

• From Middle English spure, spore, from Old English spura, spora, from Proto-Germanic *spurô, from Proto-Indo-European *sper-, *sperw-.
• See sparrow.
• Short for spurious.