different between speck vs inch

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

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?nt?/
• Rhymes: -?nt?

Etymology 1

From Middle English ynche, enche, from Old English ynce, borrowed from Latin uncia (“twelfth part”). Doublet of ounce.

Noun

inch (plural inches)

1. A unit of length equal to one twelfth of a foot, or exactly 2.54 centimetres.
2. (meteorology) The amount of water which would cover a surface to the depth of an inch, used as a measurement of rainfall.
3. The amount of an alcoholic beverage which would fill a glass or bottle to the depth of an inch.
4. (figuratively) A very short distance.

   "Don't move an inch!"

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Japanese: ??? (inchi)
• ? Korean: ?? (inchi)

Translations

Verb

inch (third-person singular simple present inches, present participle inching, simple past and past participle inched)

1. (intransitive, followed by a preposition) To advance very slowly, or by a small amount (in a particular direction).

   Fearful of falling, he inched along the window ledge.

   • 1957, J. D. Salinger, "Zooey", in, 1961, Franny and Zooey:

     The window blind had been lowered — Zooey had done all his bathtub reading by the light from the three-bulb overhead fixture—but a fraction of morning light inched under the blind and onto the title page of the manuscript.
2. To drive by inches, or small degrees.
   • 1692, John Dryden, Cleomenes, the Spartan Hero, a Tragedy

     He gets too far into the soldier's grace / And inches out my master.

3. To deal out by inches; to give sparingly.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• thou
• mil

Etymology 2

From Scottish Gaelic innis

Noun

inch (plural inches)

1. (Scotland) A small island

Usage notes

• Found especially in the names of small Scottish islands, e.g. Inchcolm, Inchkeith.

Anagrams

• Ch'in, Chin, chin, ichn-

Middle English

Noun

inch

1. Alternative form of ynche