SPIKE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Spike

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/spaɪk/ Listen

noun

Spike n.

1.

A sort of very large nail; also, a piece of pointed iron set with points upward or outward.

2.

Anything resembling such a nail in shape. "He wears on his head the corona radiata...; the spikes that shoot out represent the rays of the sun."

3.

An ear of corn or grain.

4.

(Bot.) A kind of flower cluster in which sessile flowers are arranged on an unbranched elongated axis.

Spike grass (Bot.), either of two tall perennial American grasses (Uniola paniculata, and Uniola latifolia) having broad leaves and large flattened spikelets.

Spike rush. (Bot.) See under Rush.

Spike shell (Zool.), any pteropod of the genus Styliola having a slender conical shell.

Spike team, three horses, or a horse and a yoke of oxen, harnessed together, a horse leading the oxen or the span. (U.S.)

Spike n. (Bot.) Spike lavender. See Lavender.

Oil of spike (Chem.), a colorless or yellowish aromatic oil extracted from the European broad-leaved lavender, or aspic (Lavendula Spica), used in artist's varnish and in veterinary medicine. It is often adulterated with oil of turpentine, which it much resembles.

verb

Spike v. t. (past & past part. spiked; pres. part. spiking)

1.

To fasten with spikes, or long, large nails; as, to spike down planks.

2.

To set or furnish with spikes.

3.

To fix on a spike. (R.)

4.

To stop the vent of (a gun or cannon) by driving a spike nail, or the like into it.

See images of 'Spike'

Etymology of 'Spike'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Spike" Quotes from Famous Books

... and during drier weather, cultivation is carried on for a different purpose, namely, to conserve moisture by making a thin dust mulch of soil over the surface. This is best accomplished by shallow-going implements of which the spike-tooth harrow, the acme harrow, or a light wheel cultivator are best. As the season and the amount of rainfall vary, so must tillage operations be varied. In an early dry season begin with the lighter implements earlier. In a late wet season keep the digging ...

— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt

... their narrative to inquire in their turn what had passed? What was the cause of the general discouragement? why had the cannon been abandoned to the enemy untouched? Had they not had time to spike them, or at least ...

— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... to throw me down. Feeling the Frenchman which hung about my middle hang very heavy, I said to the boy, 'Go round the binnacle, and knock down that man that hangeth on my back.' So the boy did strike him one blow on the head which made him fall.... Then I looked about for a marlin spike or anything else to strike them withal. But seeing nothing, I said, 'LORD! what shall I do?' Then casting up my eye upon my left side, and seeing a marlin spike hanging, I jerked my right arm and took hold, and struck the point four times about a quarter of an inch deep into ...

— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... being ill at ease: He hated that He cannot change His cold, Nor cure its ache. 'Hath spied an icy fish That longed to 'scape the rock-stream where she lived, And thaw herself within the lukewarm brine 35 O' the lazy sea her stream thrusts far amid, A crystal spike 'twixt two warm walls of wave; Only, she ever sickened, found repulse At the other kind of water, not her life, (Green-dense and dim-delicious, bred o' the sun) 40 Flounced back from bliss she was not born to breathe, And in her old bounds buried ...

— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... gone well. It was this which had inspired Bill Lightfoot to restrain his tongue when he was sore over his defeat; and even though Hardy confessed to being a rider, somehow no one ever thought of sawing off Spike Kennedy's "side winder" on him. The quiet, brooding reserve which came from his soldier life protected him from such familiar jests, and without knowing why, the men of the Four Peaks ...

— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

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