Word.ws English Dictionary

forspill

forspill verb: to destroy; ruin; lose.

Verb

forspill (third-person singular simple present forspills, present participle forspilling, simple past and past participle forspilled or forspilt)

  1. (transitive) To destroy; ruin; lose.
    • In fine, all these treasures, like snow on the wold, Three days lain, then to nothing forspilled, suppose.1898, Omar Khayyam, John Payne, Villon Society, The quatrains of Omar Kheyyam of Nishapour
    • In questing for the talisman That ruled the wished-for treasure, The world on me, for grief of her, Was all forspilled; and 'twas not.2011, John Payne Hafiz, The Collected Poems of Hafiz

Forms of forspill

third-person singular presentforspills
present participleforspilling
past participleforspilled
pastforspilled
past participleforspilt
pastforspilt

Origin of forspill

From Middle English forspillen, from Old English forspillan, forspildan (“to waste, lose, disperse, bring to nothing, destroy, ruin, kill”), from Proto-West Germanic *furispilþijan. Equivalent to for- + spill. Cognate with Old High German farspildan, Dutch verspillen (“to waste”), Swedish förspilla (“to waste”).

Questions about forspill

What does forspill mean?
Forspill means to destroy; ruin; lose.
What part of speech is forspill?
Forspill is a verb.
What is the past tense of forspill?
The past tense of forspill is forspilled.

Words near forspill in the dictionary

  1. forspeaks
  2. forspend
  3. forspending
  4. forspends
  5. forspent
  6. forspill
  7. forspilled
  8. forspilling
  9. forspills
  10. forspoke
  11. forspoken

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: forspill (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: “forspill.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/forspill. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.