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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

speel.

To climb.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb
  1. To climb.

    Northern-English · Scottish · dialectal
Where this word comes from

From Early Scots speill (“to climb”), of obscure origin. From or akin to Early Scots spelare (“acrobat, tumbler”). Probably from Middle Dutch spelen (“to play, walk a tight rope, do gymnastic tricks, juggle, perform as an actor or clown”), see spiel. Alternately, representing a continuation of Middle English spilen, from Old English spilian (“to play”).

verb
  1. To talk at length, to spiel.

Where this word comes from

From English dialectal speel (“talk; lingo; patter”), short for bonspiel. Related to spiel.

verb
  1. To run.

    Australia · dialectal
noun
  1. A story; a spiel.

    South-Africa
Where this word comes from

Probably from Afrikaans speel. Compare Middle English spel (“a story; tale; narrative”). Doublet of spell and shpiel.

noun
  1. A splinter; a strip of wood or metal.

    Cumbria
Where this word comes from

Possibly related to spile.

noun
  1. A game.

    Northern-England · Scotland · dialectal
    To play a good speel.
Where this word comes from

Perhaps continuing Middle English spilen (“to revel, play”), from Old English spilian (“to revel, play”), from Proto-West Germanic *spilōn. Cognate with Dutch spelen (“to play”), German spielen (“to play”), Luxembourgish spillen (“to play”), Icelandic spila (“to play”), Faroese spæla (“to play”), Swedish spela (“to play”), Danish spille (“to play”), Norwegian spille (“to play”).

verb
  1. To lake, play, sport, take amusement.

    Northern-England · Scotland · dialectal
    To speel ba'.
Where this word comes from

Perhaps continuing Middle English spilen (“to revel, play”), from Old English spilian (“to revel, play”), from Proto-West Germanic *spilōn. Cognate with Dutch spelen (“to play”), German spielen (“to play”), Luxembourgish spillen (“to play”), Icelandic spila (“to play”), Faroese spæla (“to play”), Swedish spela (“to play”), Danish spille (“to play”), Norwegian spille (“to play”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.