Word.ws English Dictionary

'spiring

'spiring is the present participle and gerund of 'spire.

Meaning of 'spire

Verb

'spire (third-person singular simple present 'spires, present participle 'spiring, simple past and past participle 'spired)

  1. (dialectal, informal) Apheretic form of inspire.
    • One old fellow name John been a run-awayer for four years and de patterrollers tries all dey tricks, but dey can't cotch him. Dey wants him bad, 'cause it 'spire other slaves to run away if he stays a-loose.1941, Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, volume 16, Washington, DC: Library of Congress, →OCLC, page 248

Questions about 'spiring

What is 'spiring the present participle and gerund of?
'spiring is the present participle and gerund of 'spire.

Words near 'spiring in the dictionary

  1. 'spects
  2. 'spensive
  3. 'spire
  4. 'spired
  5. 'spires
  6. 'spiring
  7. 'splode
  8. 'sploded
  9. 'splodes
  10. 'splodey
  11. 'sploding

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: 'spiring (page history and authors); 'spire (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “'spiring.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/%27spiring. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.