Speak - SPEAK, v.i. pret. spoke, [spake, nearly, obs.] pp. spoke, spoken. It is easy to see that the root of this word is allied to that of beak peak, pick.]
1. To utter words or articulate sounds, as human beings; to express thoughts bywords. Children learn to speak at an early age. The organs may be so obstructed that a man may not be able to speak. Speak, Lord , for thy servant hearth. I Sam. 3.
2. To utter a speech, discourse or harangue; to utter thoughts in a public assembly. A man may be well informed on a subject, and yet to diffident to speak in public. Many of the nobility make them selves popular by speaking in parliament against those things which were most grateful to his majesty.
3. To talk; to express opinions; to dispute. An honest man, sir, is able to speak for himself, when the knave is not.
4. To discourse; to make mention of. Lucan speaks of a part of Cesar's army that came to him from the Leman lake. The Scripture speaks only of those to whom it speaks.
5. To give sound. Make all your trumpets speak.
TO SPEAK WITH, to converse with. Let me speak with my son.
SPEAK, v.t.
1. To utter with the mouth; to pronounce; to utter articulately; as human beings. They sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spoke a word to him. Job 2. Speak the word, and my son shall be healed. Mat 8.
2. To declare; to proclaim; to celebrate. It is my father's music to speak your deeds.
3. To talk or converse in; to utter or pronounce, as in conversation. A man may know how to read and to understand a language which he cannot speak.
4. To address; to accost. He will smile upon thee, put thee in hope, and speak thee fair.
5. To exhibit; to make known. Let heav'n's wide circuit speak the Maker's high magnificence.
6. To express silently or by signs. The lady's looks or eyes speak the meaning or wishes of her heart.
7. To communicate; as, to speak peace to the soul.
TO SPEAK A SHIP, to hail and speak to her captain or commander. [Note. We say, to speak a word or syllable, to speak a sentence, an oration, piece, composition, or a dialogue, to speak a man's praise, &c.; but we never say, to speak an argument, a sermon or a story.]
Spend - SPEND, v.t. pret. and pp. spent. [L. expendo; from the root of L. pando, pendeo, the primary sense of which is to strain, to open or spread; allied to span, pane, &c.]
1. To lay out; to dispose of; to part with; as, to spend money for clothing. Why do ye spend money for that which is not bread? Isa 55.
2. To consume; to waste; to squander; as to spend an estate in gaming or other vices.
3. To consume; to exhaust. The provisions were spent, and the troops were in want.
4. To bestow for any purpose; often with on or upon. It is folly to spend words in debate on trifles.
5. To effuse. [Little used.]
6. To pass, as time; to suffer to pass away. They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave. Job 13.
7. To lay out; to exert or to waste; to wear away; as, to spend one's strength.
8. To exhaust of force; to waste; to wear away; as, a ball had spend its force. The violence of the waves was spent. Heaps of spent arrows fall and strew the ground.
9. To exhaust of strength; to harass; to fatigue. Their bodies spent with long labor and thirst-
SPEND, v.i.
1. To make expense; to make disposition of money. He spends like a prudent man.
2. To be lost or wasted; to vanish; to be dissipated. The sound spendeth and is dissipated in the open air.
3. To prove in the use. -Butter spent as if it cam from the richer soil.
4. To be consumed. Candles spend fast in a current of air Our provision spend rapidly.
5. To be employed to any use. The vines they use for wine are so often cut, that their sap spendeth into the grapes. [Unusual.]
Spirit - SPIR'IT, n. [L. spiritus, from spiro, to breathe, to blow. The primary sense is to rush or drive.]
1. Primarily, wind; air in motion; hence, breath. All bodies have spirits and pneumatical parts within them. [This sense is now unusual.]
2. Animal excitement, or the effect of it; life; ardor; fire; courage; elevation or vehemence of mind. The troops attacked the enemy with great spirit. The young man has the spirit of youth. He speaks or act with spirit. Spirits, in the plural, is used in nearly a like sense. The troops began to recover their spirits.
3. Vigor of intellect; genius. His wit, his beauty and his spirit. The noblest spirit or genius cannot deserve enough of mankind to pretend to the esteem of heroic virtue.
4. Temper; disposition of mind, habitual or temporary; as a man of a generous spirit, or of a revengeful spirit; the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit. Let us go to the house of God in the spirit of prayer.
5. The soul of man; the intelligent, immaterial and immortal part of human beings. [See Soul.] the spirit shall return to God that gave it. Eceles. 12.
6. An immaterial intelligent substance. Spirit is a substance in which thinking, knowing, doubting, and a power of moving do subsist. Hence,
7. An immaterial intelligent being. By which he went and preached to the spirit in prison. I Pet. 3. God is a spirit. John 4.
8. Turn of mind; temper; occasions; state of the mind. A perfect judge will read each work of wit, with the same spirit that its author writ.
9. Powers of mind distinct from the body. In spirit perhaps he also saw Rich Mexico, the seat of Montezume.
10. Sentiment; perception. You spirit is too true, your fears too certain.
11. Eager desire; disposition of mind excited and directed to a particular object. God has made a spirit of building succeed a spirit of pulling down.
12. A person of activity; a man of life, vigor or enterprise. The watery kingdom is no bar to stop the foreign spirits, but they come.
13. Persons distinguished by qualities of the mind. Such spirits as he desired to please, such would I choose for my judges.
14. Excitement of mind; animation; cheerfulness; usually in the plural. We found our friend in very good spirits. He has a great flow of spirits. -To sing thy praise, would heaven my breath prolong, Infusing spirits worthy such a song.
15. Life or strength of resemblance; essential qualities; as, to set off the face in its true spirit. The copy has not the spirit of the original.
16. Something eminently pure and refined. Nor doth the eye itself, that most pure spirit of sense, behold itself.
17. That which hath power or energy; the quality of any substance which manifest life, activity, or the power of strongly affecting other bodies; as the spirit of wine or of any liquor.
18. A strong, pungent or stimulation liquor, usually obtained by distillation, as rum, brandy, gin, whiskey. In America, spirit, used without other words explanatory of its meaning, signifies the liquor distilled from cane-juice, or rum. We say, new spirit, or old spirit, Jamaica spirit, &c.
19. An apparition; a ghost.
20. The renewed nature of man. Mat 26. Gal 5.
21. The influences of the Holy Spirit. Mat 22.
HOLY SPIRIT, the third person in the Trinity.
SPIRIT, v.t.
1. To animate; to actuate; as a spirit.
So talkd the spirited sly snake. [Little used.]
2. To animate with vigor; to excite; to encourage; as, civil dissensions spirit the ambition of private man.
It is sometimes followed by up; as, to spirit up.
3. To kidnap.
To spirit away, to entice or seduce.
Sport - SPORT, n.
1. That which diverts and makes merry; play; game; diversion; also, mirth. The word signifies both the cause and the effect; that which produces mirth, and the mirth or merriment produced.
Her sports were such as carried riches of knowledge upon the stream of delight.
Here the word denotes the cause of amusement.
They called Samson out of the prison-house; and he made them sport. Judg 16.
Here sport is the effect.
2. Mock; mockery; contemptuous mirth.
Then make sport at me, then let me be your jest.
They made a sport of his prophets.
3. That with which one plays, or which is driven about.
To flitting leaves, the sport of every wind.
Never does man appear to greater disadvantage than when he is the sport of his own ungoverned passions.
4. Play; idle jingle.
An author who should introduce such a sport of words upon our stage, would meet with small applause.
5. Diversion of the field, as fowling, hunting, fishing.
In sport. To do a thing in sport, is to do it in jest, for play or diversion.
So is the man that deceiveth his neighbor, and saith, am not I in sport? Prov 26.
SPORT, v.t.
1. To divert; to make merry; used with the reciprocal pronoun.
Against whom do ye sport yourselves? Isa 47.
2. To represent by any kind of play.
Now sporting on thy lyre the love of youth.
SPORT, v.i.
1. To play; to frolick; to wanton.
See the brisk lambs that sport along the mead.
2. To trifle. The man that laughs at religion sports with his own salvation.
Spread - SPREAD, SPRED, v.t. pret. and pp. spread or spred. [G., to spread. The more correct orthography is spred.
1. To extend in length and breadth, or in breadth only; to stretch or expand to a broader surface; as, to spread a carpet or a table cloth; to spread a sheet on the ground.
2. To extend; to form into a plate; as, to spread silver. Jer 10.
3. To set; to place; to pitch; as, to spread a tent. Gen 33.
4. To cover by extending something; to reach every part.
And an unusual paleness spreads her face.
5. To extend; to shoot to a greater length in every direction, so as to fill or cover a wider space.
The stately trees fast spread their branches.
6. To divulge; to propagate; to publish; as news or fame; to cause to be more extensively know; as, to spread a report.
In this use the word is sometimes accompanied with abroad.
They, when they had departed, spread abroad his fame in all that country. Mat 9.
7. To propagate; to cause to affect greater numbers; as, to spread a disease.
8. To emit; to diffuse; as emanations or effluvia; as, odoriferous plants spread their fragrance.
9. To disperse; to scatter over a larger surface; as, to spread manure; to spread plaster or lime on the ground.
10. To prepare; to set and furnish with provision; as, to spread a table. God spread a table for the Israelites in the wilderness.
11. To open; to unfold; to unfurl; to stretch; as, to spread the sails of a ship.
SPREAD, SPRED, v.i.
1. To extend itself in length and breadth, in all directions, or in breadth only; to be extended or stretched. The larger elms spread over a space of forty or fifty yards in diameter; or the shade of the larger elms spreads over that space. The larger lakes in America spread over more than fifteen hundred square miles.
Plants, if they spread much, are seldom tall.
2. To be extended by drawing or beating; as, a metal spreads with difficulty.
3. To be propagated or made known more extensively. Ill reports sometimes spread with wonderful rapidity.
4. To be propagated from one to another; as, a disease spreads into all parts of a city. The yellow fever of American cities has not been found to spread in the country.
SPREAD, SPRED, n.
1. Extent; compass.
I have a fine spread of improvable land.
2. Expansion of parts.
No flower has that spread of the woodbind.