spike.
A sort of very large nail.
Meaning & usage
A sort of very large nail.
A piece of pointed metal etc. set with points upward or outward.
The trap was lined with spikes.
Anything resembling such a nail in shape.
An ear of corn or grain.
A kind of inflorescence in which sessile flowers are arranged on an unbranched elongated axis.
A running shoe with spikes in the sole to provide grip.
A sharp peak in a graph.
A surge in power or in the price of a commodity, etc.; any sudden and brief change that would be represented by a sharp peak on a graph.
The rod-like protrusion from a woman's high-heeled shoe that elevates the heel.
A long nail for storing papers by skewering them; (by extension) the metaphorical place where rejected newspaper articles are sent.
An attack from, usually, above the height of the net performed with the intent to send the ball straight to the floor of the opponent or off the hands of the opposing block.
An adolescent male deer.
The casual ward of a workhouse.
Spike lavender.
oil of spike
Synonym of endpin.
A mark indicating where a prop or other item should be placed on stage.
A small project that uses the simplest possible program to explore potential solutions.
An excessively high church Anglican.
a structure projecting from the surface of an enveloped virus, which binds to host cells.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English spike, spyke, spik, from Old Norse spík (“spike, sprig”), from Proto-Germanic *spīkō (“stick, splinter, point”), from Proto-Indo-European *spey- (“to be pointed; sharp point, stick”). Cognate with Icelandic spík (“spike”), Swedish spik (“spike, nail”), Dutch spijker (“nail”), Old English spīcing (“spike”), and Latin spīca (“ear of corn”), which may have influenced some senses.
To fasten with spikes, or long, large nails.
to spike down planks
To set or furnish with spikes.
To embed nails into (a tree) so that any attempt to cut it down will damage equipment or injure people.
To fix on a spike.
To discard; to decide not to publish or make public.
To increase sharply.
Traffic accidents spiked in December when there was ice on the roads.
To add alcohol or a drug into a drink, especially if covertly.
She spiked my lemonade with vodka!
To add a small amount of one substance to another.
The water sample to be tested has been spiked with arsenic, antimony, mercury, and lead in quantities commonly found in industrial effluents.
To attack from, usually, above the height of the net with the intent to send the ball straight to the floor of the opponent or off the hands of the opposing block.
To render (a gun) unusable by driving a metal spike into its touch hole.
To slam the football to the ground, usually in celebration of scoring a touchdown, or to stop expiring time on the game clock after snapping the ball as to save time for the losing team to attempt to score the tying or winning points.
to spike the football
To inject a drug with a syringe.
To speak directly to camera.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English spike, spyke, spik, from Old Norse spík (“spike, sprig”), from Proto-Germanic *spīkō (“stick, splinter, point”), from Proto-Indo-European *spey- (“to be pointed; sharp point, stick”). Cognate with Icelandic spík (“spike”), Swedish spik (“spike, nail”), Dutch spijker (“nail”), Old English spīcing (“spike”), and Latin spīca (“ear of corn”), which may have influenced some senses.
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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.