different between spill vs swill

English

Etymology

From Middle English spillen, from Old English spillan, spildan (“to kill, destroy, waste”), from Proto-West Germanic *spilþijan, from Proto-Germanic *spilþijan? (“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 ("to waste, squander" < Germanic), Bavarian spillen (“to split, cleave, splinter”), Danish spille (“to spill, waste”), Swedish spilla (“to spill, waste”), Icelandic spilla (“to contaminate, spoil”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sp?l/
• Rhymes: -?l

Verb

spill (third-person singular simple present spills, present participle spilling, simple past and past participle spilled or spilt)

1. (transitive) To drop something so that it spreads out or makes a mess; to accidentally pour.

2. (intransitive) To spread out or fall out, as above.

   • He was so topful of himself, that he let it spill on all the company.

3. (transitive) To drop something that was intended to be caught.
4. To mar; to damage; to destroy by misuse; to waste.
   • 1589, George Puttenham, The Arte of English Poesie

     They [the colours] disfigure the stuff and spill the whole workmanship.

   • 1642, Thomas Fuller, The Holy State and the Profane State

     Spill not the morning (the quintessence of day) in recreations.

5. (obsolete, intransitive) To be destroyed, ruined, or wasted; to come to ruin; to perish; to waste.

   • That thou wilt suffer innocence to spill.

6. (transitive) To cause to flow out and be lost or wasted; to shed.
   • 1665, John Dryden, The Indian Emperour

     to revenge his blood so justly spilt

7. (transitive, slang, obsolete) To cause to be thrown from a mount, a carriage, etc.
   • 2007, Eric Flint, ?David Weber, 1634: The Baltic War

     Then, not thirty feet beyond, a sudden panicky lunge to the side by his horse spilled him from the saddle.

8. To cover or decorate with slender pieces of wood, metal, ivory, etc.; to inlay.
9. (nautical) 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.
10. (transitive, Australian politics) To open the leadership of a parliamentary party for re-election.
11. (transitive) To reveal information to an uninformed party.

12. (of a knot) To come undone.

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

spill (plural spills)

1. (countable) A mess of something that has been dropped.
2. A fall or stumble.

   The bruise is from a bad spill he had last week.

3. A small stick or piece of paper used to light a candle, cigarette etc by the transfer of a flame from a fire.
   • 2008, Elizabeth Bear, Ink and Steel: A Novel of the Promethean Age:

     Kit froze with the pipe between his teeth, the relit spill pressed to the weed within it.

4. A slender piece of anything.
   1. A peg or pin for plugging a hole, as in a cask; a spile.
   2. A metallic rod or pin.
5. (mining) One of the thick laths or poles driven horizontally ahead of the main timbering in advancing a level in loose ground.
6. (sound recording) The situation where sound is picked up by a microphone from a source other than that which is intended.
7. (obsolete) A small sum of money.

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

8. (Australian politics) A declaration that the leadership of a parliamentary party is vacant, and open for re-election. Short form of leadership spill.

Quotations

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

Derived terms

Translations

Anagrams

• pills

Gothic

Romanization

spill

1. Romanization of ????????????????????

Luxembourgish

Verb

spill

1. second-person singular imperative of spillen

Middle English

Etymology

From Old English spillan.

Verb

spill

1. Alternative form of spillen

Norwegian Bokmål

Alternative forms

• spell

Etymology 1

From the verb spille

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sp?l/
• Rhymes: -?l

Noun

spill n (definite singular spillet, indefinite plural spill, definite plural spilla or spillene)

1. a game (or part of a game, e.g., a hand, a round); equipment for a game (e.g., deck of cards, set of dice, board, men, pieces, etc.)
2. play, playing

   ballen er ute av spill - the ball is out of play

3. gambling; card-playing
4. musical instrument (in compounds such as trekkspill (“accordion”))
5. stage play
6. flickering, play, sparkling (of flames, lights, colors, eyes, a smile)

Derived terms

See also

• spel (Nynorsk)

Etymology 2

Verb

spill

1. imperative of spille

References

• “spill” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Swedish

Noun

spill n

1. waste, unusable surplus material
2. a spill (a mess of something spilled, dropped or leaked)

Declension

Verb

spill

1. imperative of spilla.

English

Etymology

From Middle English swilen (“to wash; swirl; wash away”), from Old English swillan, swilian (“to wash; wash down; swill; gargle”), from Proto-Germanic *swiljan? (“to gulp, swallow”), from Proto-Indo-European *swel- (“to drink, gulp, swallow”). Related to English swallow.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sw?l/
• Rhymes: -?l

Noun

swill (countable and uncountable, plural swills)

1. (collective) A mixture of solid and liquid food scraps fed to pigs etc; especially kitchen waste for this purpose.

   Synonyms: hogwash, slops, pigswill

2. (by extension) Any disgusting or distasteful liquid.

3. (by extension, figuratively) Anything disgusting or worthless.
4. (informal) A large quantity of liquid drunk at one swallow.

   Synonym: swig

5. (informal) Inexpensive beer or alcohol.

   Coordinate terms: hooch, rotgut

6. (Ultimate Frisbee) A badly-thrown pass.

Translations

Verb

swill (third-person singular simple present swills, present participle swilling, simple past and past participle swilled)

1. (transitive) To drink (or, rarely, eat) greedily or to excess.
   • 1771, Tobias Smollett, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, Dublin: P. Wogan, 1793, Volume I, p. 130,^[2]

     […] well-dressed people, of both sexes, […] devouring sliced beef, and swilling port, and punch, and cider […]

   • 1820, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe, Chapter 21,^[3]

     “It is time lost,” muttered Cedric apart and impatiently, “to speak to him of aught else but that which concerns his appetite! […] he hath no pleasure save to fill, to swill, and to call for more. […] ”

   • 1913, D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, chapter 8

   • 1944, Rutherford George Montgomery (as Al Avery), A Yankee Flier in Italy, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, Chapter 1, p. 9,^[4]

     O’Malley answered calmly as he shoved half of the pie into his mouth.

     “Stop! Stop—swilling that pie!” the colonel roared.

2. (transitive) To wash (something) by flooding with water.
   • c. 1598, William Shakespeare, Henry V, Act III, Scene 1,^[5]

     As fearfully as doth a galled rock

     O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,

     Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean.

   • 1860, George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, Book 3, Chapter 6,^[6]

     Already, at three o’clock, Kezia, the good-hearted, bad-tempered housemaid, who regarded all people that came to the sale as her personal enemies, the dirt on whose feet was of a peculiarly vile quality, had begun to scrub and swill with an energy much assisted by a continual low muttering […]

   • 1933, George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz, Chapter 27, p. 197,^[7]

     When my turn came for the bath, I asked if I might swill out the tub, which was streaked with dirt, before using it.

3. (transitive) To move (a liquid or liquid-filled vessel) in a circular motion.
   • 1958, Muriel Spark, Robinson, New York: New Directions, 2003, Chapter 6, p. 69,^[8]

     Jimmie looked lovingly at the flask, smelt it, and then, placing it next his ear, swilled it round to hear the splash of liquor.

   • 2004, Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty, London: Picador, Chapter 14, p. 422,^[9]

     He swilled round the whisky in his glass […]

4. (intransitive, of a liquid) To move around or over a surface.
   • 1906, Perceval Gibbon, “The Coward” in Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases, New York: McClure, Phillips, pp. 222-223,^[10]

     […] before them, between the high banks of the Vaal, they saw only a world of brown water, streaked with white froth, hurling down upon them. It rose above the foot-board and swilled to the level of the seat.

   • 1959, Ezra Pound, “Canto 96” in The Cantos of Ezra Pound, New York: New Directions, 1986, p. 654,^[11]

     A flood of fads swilled over all Europe.

   • 2000, Hanif Kureishi, “Goodbye, Mother” in Granta 69, Spring 2000, p. 119,^[12]

     The smell, the internal workings of every human being, the shit, blood, mucus swilling in a bag of flesh, made him mad. He felt he was wearing the glasses the stage hypnotist had given people, but instead of seeing them naked, he saw their inner physiology, their turbulence, their death.

5. (transitive, obsolete) To inebriate; to fill with drink.
   • 1634, John Milton, Comus, London: Humphrey Robinson, 1637, p. ,^[13]

     […] I should be loath

     To meet the rudenesse, and swill’d insolence

     Of such late Wassailers;

   • 1858, “A Primary Election at Peter Cooper’s Funny Little Grocery-Groggery,” Stephen H. Branch’s Alligator, Volume I, No. 13, 17 July, 1858, p. 2,^[14]

     Have I not kept open house for three days and nights, and swilled yourself and comrades with liquor for a week, and haven’t you all been drunk at my expense for several days?

6. (transitive) To feed swill to (pigs).
   • 1921, Nephi Anderson, Dorian, Salt Lake City, Chapter 8, p. 84,^[15]

Anagrams

• Wills, wills