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:
Then I think of the spile and wrest it from the tree trunk.
From "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins
Fortunately the vines here are strong and the spile and tube of medicine wrapped in the parachute are still secured to my belt.
From "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins
I strip a tough vine of its leaves, thread it through the hollow center, and tie the spile securely to my belt.
From "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins
She opens the silver parachute and pulls out the spile and slips it onto her pinkie.
From "Mockingjay" by Suzanne Collins
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
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
In spite of all they've spiled, I'd be nigh $500 ahead o' the game if I could git out o' camp with what I've got in my sock.
From Si Klegg, Book 2 (of 6) Thru The Stone River Campaign And In Winter Quarters At Murfreesboro by John McElroy
"There's more good men spiled by schoolmasters than we hear tell of in the noospapers."
From When Ghost Meets Ghost by William Frend De Morgan
And she vowed it was spiled, while Jack looked jest as though he could scrumplicate me.
From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 93. July 30, 1887 by
Lin asserted that "the durn jingling contraption, jes spiled the hull thing and ye don't make good music with it nohow."
From Watch Yourself Go By by Ben W. Warden
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
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
Now get out of here–the both of you: you’re spiling trade.
From In the Heart of a Fool by William Allen White
"Faix—we wouldn't be afther spiling your honer's divarsion, my lord, on no account," said another.
From The Kellys and the O'Kellys by Anthony Trollope
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
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.
