different between spell vs saw

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: sp?l, IPA^(key): /sp?l/
• Rhymes: -?l

Etymology 1

From Middle English spell, spel, from Old English spell (“news, story”), from Proto-Germanic *spell? (“speech, account, tale”), from Proto-Indo-European *spel- (“to tell”). Cognate with dialectal German Spill, Icelandic spjall (“discussion, talk”), spjalla (“to discuss, to talk”), guðspjall (“gospel”) and Albanian fjalë (“word”).

Noun

spell (plural spells)

1. Words or a formula supposed to have magical powers. [from 16th c.]

   Synonyms: cantrip, incantation

2. A magical effect or influence induced by an incantation or formula. [from 16th c.]

   Synonym: cantrip
3. (obsolete) Speech, discourse. [8th–15th c.]

Derived terms

• byspel
• spellbind
• spellbound
• spellwork

Translations

Verb

spell (third-person singular simple present spells, present participle spelling, simple past and past participle spelled)

1. To put under the influence of a spell; to affect by a spell; to bewitch; to fascinate; to charm.
   • 1647, George Buck, The History and Life and Reigne of Richard the Third, London, Book 4, p. 116,^[1]

     […] although the Kings Jealousie was thus particular to her, his Affection was as general to others […] Above all, for a time he was much speld with Elianor Talbot […]

   • 1697, John Dryden (translator), Georgics, Book 3 in The Works of Virgil, London: Jacob Tonson, p. 109, lines 444-446,^[2]

     This, gather’d in the Planetary Hour,

     With noxious Weeds, and spell’d with Words of pow’r

     Dire Stepdames in the Magick Bowl infuse;

   • 1817, John Keats, “To a Friend who sent me some Roses” in Poems, London: C. & J. Ollier, p. 83,^[3]

     But when, O Wells! thy roses came to me

     My sense with their deliciousness was spell’d:

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English spellen, from Anglo-Norman espeler, espeleir, Old French espeller, espeler (compare Modern French épeler), from Frankish *spel?n, merged with native Old English spellian (“to tell, speak”), both eventually from Proto-Germanic *spell?n? (“to speak”). Related with etymology 1. The sense “indicate a future event” probably in part a backformation from forespell (literally “to tell in advance”).

Verb

spell (third-person singular simple present spells, present participle spelling, simple past and past participle spelled or (mostly UK) spelt)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To read (something) as though letter by letter; to peruse slowly or with effort. [from 14th c.]
   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick:

     "He'll do," said Bildad, eyeing me, and then went on spelling away at his book in a mumbling tone quite audible.

2. (transitive, sometimes with “out”) To write or say the letters that form a word or part of a word. [from 16th c.]
3. (intransitive) To be able to write or say the letters that form words.

4. (transitive) Of letters: to compose (a word). [from 19th c.]
5. (transitive, figuratively, with “out”) To clarify; to explain in detail. [from 20th c.]
   • 2003, U.S. Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbel, Hearing before the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, ?ISBN:

     When we get elected, for instance, we get one of these, and we are pretty much told what is in it, and it is our responsibility to read it and understand it, and if we do not, the Ethics Committee, we can call them any time of day and ask them to spell it out for us […]

6. (transitive) To indicate that (some event) will occur. [from 19th c.]

7. To constitute; to measure.

   • the Saxon heptarchy, when seven kings put together did spell but one in effect

8. (obsolete) To speak, to declaim. [9th-16th c.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, I.ii:

     O who can tell / The hidden power of herbes, and might of Magicke spell?

9. (obsolete) To tell; to relate; to teach.
   • 1770, Thomas Warton, “Ode on the Approach of Summer” in A Collection of Poems in Four Volumes, London: G. Pearch, Volume 1, p. 278,^[5]

     As thro’ the caverns dim I wind,

     Might I that legend find,

     By fairies spelt in mystic rhymes,

Derived terms

• fingerspell
• forespell
• speller
• spelling
• spello
• spell out
• spell trouble

Synonyms

• (to indicate that some event will occur): forebode; mean; signify
• (to work in place of someone else): relieve
• (to compose a word): (informal) comprise

Translations

Etymology 3

From Middle English spelen, from Old English spelian (“to represent, take or stand in the place of another, act as a representative of another”), akin to Middle English spale (“a rest or break”), Old English spala (“representative, substitute”).

Verb

spell (third-person singular simple present spells, present participle spelling, simple past and past participle spelled or spelt)

1. (transitive) To work in place of (someone).

   to spell the helmsman

2. (transitive) To rest (someone or something), to give someone or something a rest or break.

   They spelled the horses and rested in the shade of some trees near a brook.

3. (intransitive, colloquial) To rest from work for a time.

Derived terms

• spell off

Translations

Noun

spell (plural spells)

1. A shift (of work); (rare) a set of workers responsible for a specific turn of labour. [from 16th c.]
2. (informal) A definite period (of work or other activity). [from 18th c.]
3. (colloquial) An indefinite period of time (usually with a qualifier); by extension, a relatively short distance. [from 18th c.]
4. A period of rest; time off. [from 19th c.]
5. (colloquial, US) A period of illness, or sudden interval of bad spirits, disease etc. [from 19th c.]
6. (cricket) An uninterrupted series of alternate overs bowled by a single bowler. [from 20th c.]

Derived terms

• cold spell
• dry spell
• set a spell

Descendants

• ? Welsh: sbel

Translations

Quotations

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

Etymology 4

Origin uncertain; perhaps a form of speld.

Noun

spell (plural spells)

1. (dialectal) A splinter, usually of wood; a spelk.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Holland to this entry?)

2. The wooden bat in the game of trap ball, or knurr and spell.

Anagrams

• Pells, pells

Faroese

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sp?tl/

Noun

spell n (genitive singular spels, plural spell)

1. pity, shame
   • stór spell

     big shame

   • tað var spell

     it was a pity

   • spell var í honum

     it was too bad for him

Declension

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology 1

From the verb spelle

Noun

spell n (definite singular spellet, indefinite plural spell, definite plural spella or spellene)

1. Alternative form of spill

See also

• spel (Nynorsk)

Etymology 2

Verb

spell

1. imperative of spelle

Old English

Alternative forms

• spel

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *spell.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /spell/, [spe?]

Noun

spell n

1. story
   • late 9th century, King Alfred's translation of Orosius’ History Against the Pagans

2. news
   • late 9th century, King Alfred's translation of Orosius’ History Against the Pagans

3. prose or a work of prose
   • late 9th century, King Alfred's translation of Boethius' The Consolation of Philosophy

Declension

Antonyms

• l?oþ (“poem”)
• l?oþcræft (“poetry”)

Derived terms

• b?spell
• godspell
• spellian

Descendants

• Middle English: spell, spel
  • English: spell

References

• “spell” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: sô, IPA^(key): /s??/

  Homophones: (in some non-rhotic accents): soar, sore

• Rhymes: -??
• (US) enPR: sô, IPA^(key): /s?/
• (cot–caught merger) enPR: sä, IPA^(key): /s??/

  (idiosyncratic, past tense of 'see') IPA^(key): /s??l/

Etymology 1

The noun from Middle English sawe, sawgh, from Old English saga, sagu (“saw”), from Proto-Germanic *sagô, *sag? (“saw”), from Proto-Indo-European *sek- (“to cut”). Cognate with West Frisian seage (“saw”), Dutch zaag (“saw”), German Säge (“saw”), Danish sav (“saw”), Swedish såg (“saw”), Icelandic sög (“saw”), and through Indo-European, with Latin sec? (“cut”) and Italian sega (“saw”).

The verb from Middle English sawen, from the noun above.

Noun

saw (plural saws)

1. A tool with a toothed blade used for cutting hard substances, in particular wood or metal
2. A musical saw.
3. A sawtooth wave.

Derived terms

Descendants

• Sranan Tongo: sa

Translations

Verb

saw (third-person singular simple present saws, present participle sawing, simple past sawed, past participle sawed or sawn)

1. (transitive) To cut (something) with a saw.

   They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented;

2. (intransitive) To make a motion back and forth similar to cutting something with a saw.

   The fiddler sawed away at his instrument.

3. (intransitive) To be cut with a saw.

   The timber saws smoothly.

4. (transitive) To form or produce (something) by cutting with a saw.

   to saw boards or planks (i.e. to saw logs or timber into boards or planks)

   to saw shingles; to saw out a panel

Derived terms

• saw gourds
• saw wood

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English sawe, from Old English sagu, saga (“story, tale, saying, statement, report, narrative, tradition”), from Proto-West Germanic *sag?, from Proto-Germanic *sag?, *sag? (“saying, story”), from Proto-Indo-European *sek?e-, *sk??-, from *sek?- (“to follow”). Cognate with Dutch sage (“saga”), German Sage (“legend, saga, tale, fable”), Danish sagn (“legend”), Norwegian soga (“story”), Icelandic saga (“story, tale, history”). More at saga, say. Doublet of saga.

Noun

saw (plural saws)

1. (obsolete) Something spoken; speech, discourse.

   • And for thy trew sawys, and I may lyve many wynters, there was never no knyght better rewardid […].

     And for your true discourses, and I may live many winters, there was never no knight better rewarded […].

2. A saying or proverb.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:saying

   • 1599, William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II Scene VII, lines 152-5.

     And then the justice, / In fair round belly with good capon lined, / With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, / Full of wise saws and modern instances.

   • 1902, Charles Robert Ashbee, Masque of the Edwards of England, page 8.

     At his crowning […] the priest in his honour preached on the saw, 'Vox populi, vox Dei.'

   • 2017, Andrew Marantz, "Becoming Steve Bannon's Bannon", The New Yorker, Feb 13&20 ed.

     There’s an old saw about Washington, D.C., that staffers in their twenties know more about the minutiae of government than their bosses do.

3. (obsolete) Opinion, idea, belief.

4. (obsolete) Proposal, suggestion; possibility.
   • c. 1350-1400, unknown, The Erl of Toulous

     All they assentyd to the sawe; They thoght he spake reson and lawe.

5. (obsolete) Dictate; command; decree.
   • 1595, Edmund Spenser, Colin Clouts Come Home Againe

     [Love] rules the creatures by his powerful saw.

Derived terms

• soothsaw
• withsaw

Translations

Etymology 3

Verb

saw

1. simple past tense of see
2. (colloquial, nonstandard) past participle of see

Interjection

saw

1. (slang) What's up (either as a greeting or actual question).

Anagrams

• ASW, AWS, Was, aws, was

Atong (India)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /s?aw/

Adjective

saw (Bengali script ???)

1. rotten

Khasi

Etymology

From Proto-Khasian *sa?w, an innovation of the Khasian branch. Cognate with Pnar soo.

Numeral

saw

1. four

Middle English

Noun

saw

1. saw
   • 1387', Ranulf Higden, John of Trevisa (translator), Polychronicon

     Þe more comoun sawe is þat Remus was i-slawe for he leep ouer þe newe walles of Rome.

     The more common opinion is that Remus was slain for he lept over the new walls of Rome.

Northern Kurdish

Noun

saw ?

1. terror
2. horror

Scots

Pronunciation

• (Doric and most Southern Scots dialects) IPA^(key): /sa/
• (Central and some Southern Scots dialects) IPA^(key): /s?/

Etymology 1

Verb

saw

1. (South Scots) simple past tense of sei
2. (Northern and Central) simple past tense of see

Etymology 2

Noun

saw (plural saws)

1. A salve.

Zhuang

Pronunciation

• (Standard Zhuang) IPA^(key): /?a???/
• Tone numbers: saw¹
• Hyphenation: saw

Etymology 1

From Proto-Tai *s??? (“writing; book”), from Middle Chinese ? (MC ???, “writing; book”). Cognate with Lao ?? (s??), Thai ??? (s???).

Alternative forms

• sw

Noun

saw (Sawndip forms ???? or ? or ???? or ????, old orthography s??)

1. written language; writing; script
2. (Chinese) character
3. word
4. book
5. teaching material
6. receipt; voucher

Derived terms

Etymology 2

From Proto-Tai *sa?? (“clear; clean”). Cognate with Thai ?? (s?i), Northern Thai ??, Isan ??, Lao ?? (sai), Lü ?? (?ay), Tai Dam ??, Shan ??? (s?ue), Tai Nüa ??? (sáue), Ahom ???????? (saw) or ???????????? (sawu).

Adjective

saw (Sawndip forms ???? or ???? or ?, old orthography s??)

1. clean
2. (of transparent objects, water, etc.) clear
3. (of liquids other than water) watery; thin

Etymology 3

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “from ??”)

Verb

saw (Sawndip forms ???? or ?, old orthography s??)

1. to lose