different between spire vs swire

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: sp?r, sp???r, IPA^(key): /spa??/, /?spa??/
• (General American) enPR: sp?r, sp???r, IPA^(key): /spa??/, /?spa??/
• Rhymes: -a??(?)

Etymology 1

From Middle English spire, spyre, spier, spir, from Old English sp?r, from Proto-Germanic *sp?r?, *sp?r? (“peak; point; tip; stalk”). Cognate with Dutch spier, German Low German Spier, German Spier, Spiere, Danish spir, Norwegian spir and spire, Swedish spira, Icelandic spíra.

Noun

spire (plural spires)

1. (now rare) The stalk or stem of a plant. [from 10th c.]
2. A young shoot of a plant; a spear. [from 14th c.]
   • 1913, D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, chapter 12

     Clara had pulled a button from a hollyhock spire, and was breaking it to get the seeds.

3. Any of various tall grasses, rushes, or sedges, such as the marram, the reed canary-grass, etc.
4. A sharp or tapering point. [from 16th c.]
5. A tapering structure built on a roof or tower, especially as one of the central architectural features of a church or cathedral roof. [from 16th c.]

   The spire of the church rose high above the town.

6. The top, or uppermost point, of anything; the summit. [from 17th c.]
7. (mining) A tube or fuse for communicating fire to the charge in blasting.

Translations

Verb

spire (third-person singular simple present spires, present participle spiring, simple past and past participle spired)

1. (of a seed, plant etc.) to sprout, to send forth the early shoots of growth; to germinate. [from 14th c.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.5:

     In gentle Ladies breste and bounteous race / Of woman kind it fayrest Flowre doth spyre, / And beareth fruit of honour and all chast desyre.

   • It is not so apt to spire up as the other sorts, being more inclined to branch into arms.

2. To grow upwards rather than develop horizontally. [from 14th c.]
3. (transitive) To furnish with a spire.

Etymology 2

From Old French spirer, and its source, Latin sp?r? (“to breathe”).

Verb

spire (third-person singular simple present spires, present participle spiring, simple past and past participle spired)

1. (intransitive, obsolete) To breathe. [14th-16th c.]

Etymology 3

From Middle French spire.

Noun

spire (plural spires)

1. One of the sinuous foldings of a serpent or other reptile; a coil. [from 16th c.]
2. A spiral. [from 17th c.]

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

3. (geometry) The part of a spiral generated in one revolution of the straight line about the pole.

Anagrams

• Peris, Piers, Speir, Spier, peris, piers, pries, prise, resip, ripes, spier

French

Etymology

From Latin spira, from Ancient Greek ?????? (speîra).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /spi?/

Noun

spire f (plural spires)

1. turn (of a spiral)

Further reading

• “spire” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• péris, pires, pries, priés, prise, ripes, ripés

Italian

Noun

spira f

1. plural of spira

Anagrams

• persi, presi, serpi, speri

Middle English

Noun

spire

1. Alternative form of spere (“sphere”)

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology

From Old Norse spíra (stem, pipe; little tree)

Noun

spire f or m (definite singular spira or spiren, indefinite plural spirer, definite plural spirene)

1. sprout

Verb

spire (present tense spirer, past tense spirte, past participle spirt)

1. to sprout

References

• “spire” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Venetian

Noun

spire

1. plural of spira

English

Etymology

From Middle English swire, from Old English sw?ora, from Proto-Germanic *swerhô.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /swa??/

Noun

swire (plural swires)

1. (obsolete) The neck.
2. A hollow between two hills or peaks, especially with a road running through it; a vale.
   • 1824, James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Oxford 2010, p. 33:

     As he approached the swire at the head of the dell […] , he beheld, to his astonishment, a bright halo in the cloud of haze, that rose in a semi-circle over his head like a pale rainbow.

Anagrams

• Rewis, Wires, Wiser, weirs, wiers, wires, wiser, wries

Scots

Alternative forms

• swyre

Etymology

From Old English sw?ora (Northumbrian sw?ra), or the cognate Old Norse svíra, from Proto-Germanic *swerhô.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sw?i(?)r/

Noun

swire (plural swires)

1. (obsolete) neck
2. (geography) vale, swire, valley