different between spack vs speck

English

Etymology

Possibly a contraction of spastic (as a term of abuse).

Pronunciation

Noun

spack (plural spacks)

1. (Britain slang, derogatory) A clumsy, foolish, or mentally deficient person.

   Synonyms: spacko, spaz

   • For quotations using this term, see Citations:spack.

Derived terms

• spack attack

Related terms

• spacko
• spacka
• spacker
• spaz
• spastic

Anagrams

• packs

German

Etymology

From Middle Low German spak (“thin, dry, brittle”) from spake (“brushwood”). Or from rare Middle Low German spak (“tame, calm”) from an unknown source.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?pak/, [?pak?]
• Rhymes: -ak

Adjective

spack (comparative spacker, superlative am spacksten)

1. (regional, Northern Germany, usually of people) thin, scrawny (having an unusually low amount of both muscle and fat)
2. (regional, Northern Germany, of wood) dry, brittle

Declension

Related terms

• Spacken

Further reading

• “spack” in Duden online

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sp?k/
• Homophone: spec
• Rhymes: -?k

Etymology 1

From Middle English spekke, from Old English specca (“small spot, stain”). Cognate with Low German spaken (“to spot with wet”).

Noun

speck (plural specks)

1. A tiny spot, especially of dirt etc.
2. A very small thing; a particle; a whit.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:modicum

   • a. 1864, Walter Savage Landor, quoted in 1971, Ernest Dilworth, Walter Savage Landor, Twayne Publishers, page 88,

     Onward, and many bright specks bubble up along the blue Aegean; islands, every one of which, if the songs and stories of the pilots are true, is the monument of a greater man than I am.
3. (zoology) A small etheostomoid fish, Etheostoma stigmaeum, common in the eastern United States.

Translations

Verb

speck (third-person singular simple present specks, present participle specking, simple past and past participle specked)

1. (transitive) To mark with specks; to speckle.

   paper specked by impurities in the water used in its manufacture

   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, 1991, Stephen Orgel, Jonathan Goldberg (editors), The Major Works, 2003, paperback, page 534,

     Each flower of slender stalk, whose head though gay / Carnation, purple, azure, or specked with gold, / Hung drooping unsustained,

Etymology 2

From earlier specke, spycke (probably reinforced by Dutch spek, German Speck), from Middle English spik, spyk, spike, spich, from Old English spic (“bacon; lard; fat”), from Proto-Germanic *spikk?, *spik? (“bacon”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Späk, Dutch spek, German Speck, Icelandic spik.

Noun

speck (uncountable)

1. Fat; lard; fat meat.
2. (uncountable) A juniper-flavoured ham originally from Tyrol.
3. The blubber of whales or other marine mammals.
4. The fat of the hippopotamus.

Translations

Anagrams

• pecks

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from German Speck, from Middle High German spec, from Old High German spek, from Proto-Germanic *spik? (“bacon”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?sp?k/
• Hyphenation: spèck

Noun

speck m (invariable)

1. speck (type of ham)

   Hypernym: salume

Further reading

• Speck Alto Adige on the Italian Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^it

References

• speck in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana