spell

CEFRA1

/spɛl/

verb · noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    verb

    To write or say the letters of a word in order.

  2. 02

    noun

    A period of time spent doing something.

Examples

  • We had a spell of warm weather in April.

  • A cold spell gripped Europe.

At a glance

Sits at A1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
2
Citations
5
Synonyms
5

Deep Dive

verb

Extra meanings

  1. A magical effect or influence induced by an incantation or formula.

  2. Speech, discourse.

noun

Extra meaning

  1. Words or a formula supposed to have magical powers.

More examples

In context

  • How do you spell "pretty"?

  • He cast a spell to cure warts.

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

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The student tried to blank the difficult word correctly on the board.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

verb

From Middle English spell, spel, from Old English spell (“news, story”), from Proto-Germanic *spellą (“speech, account, tale”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)pel- (“to tell”) or from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- (“to speak, to sound”) with the s-mobile prefix. Cognate with dialectal German Spill, Icelandic spjall (“discussion, talk”), spjalla (“to discuss, to talk”), guðspjall (“gospel”) and Albanian fjalë (“word”).