spile
1 Americannoun
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a peg or plug of wood, especially one used as a spigot.
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a spout for conducting sap from the sugar maple.
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a heavy wooden stake or pile.
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Mining. forepole.
verb (used with object)
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to stop up (a hole) with a spile or peg.
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to furnish with a spigot or spout, as for drawing off a liquid.
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to tap by means of a spile.
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to furnish, strengthen, or support with spiles or piles.
verb (used with or without object)
noun
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a heavy timber stake or pile
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a spout for tapping sap from the sugar maple tree
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a plug or spigot
verb
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to provide or support with a spile
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to tap (a tree) with a spile
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dialect a splinter
Etymology
Origin of spile
1505–15; < Middle Dutch or Middle Low German spile splinter, peg; cognate with German Speil
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Rhys: I don’t do much with Instagram but my algorithm is generally older men showing you how to kind of spile a garboard plank next to a keel, things like that.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2026
Finnick goes to hammer the spile into the green bark of a massive tree with a rock, but I stop him.
From "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins
Then I think of the spile and wrest it from the tree trunk.
From "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins
My fingers fumble at my belt and find the spile still hanging from its vine.
From "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins
I drop the spile, forget where I am or what lies ahead, only know I must reach her, protect her.
From "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins
Many tech stocks were having a rough start after Broadcom’s fiscal second-quarter report sparked a 15.5% decline in the stock—and spiled across the sector.
From Barron's ● Jun. 4, 2026
"What's more, all their appetites'll be spiled, and they won't enjoy eatin' any thing."
From Winter Fun by William O. Stoddard
The spirit of an infuriated cook must have raged in Mrs. Jackson's breast when she bade Betty "tell 'em to mak' the best of it, because everything is spiled."
From The House 'Round the Corner by Louis Tracy
"And a mercy it was that he wasn't smashed to splinters, with spiled looks and half his limbses orf," she said.
From The Opal Serpent by Fergus Hume
“My God,” said the Bishop as he wiped away the tears on the back of his hand—“my God, but that blow has spiled God's noblest gentleman.”
From The Bishop of Cottontown A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills by John Trotwood Moore
I rushed forrard, and raised her to my arms: spiling thereby a new weskit and a pair of crimson smalcloes.
From The Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush by William Makepeace Thackeray
Here his feet were close to the water, but he supported himself on a cross rail nailed from one section of the spiling to another.
From Young Hunters of the Lake by Ralph Bonehill
And there’s many a lady that she never would have seen a cent, let alone making herself pay for the spiling of it.”
From At Fault by Kate Chopin
Down below two dark forms, covered with mud and flour paste, could be seen clutching at the slippery braces of the spiling.
From Young Hunters of the Lake by Ralph Bonehill
Now get out of here–the both of you: you’re spiling trade.
From In the Heart of a Fool by William Allen White
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
