Word.ws English Dictionary

setting a spell

setting a spell is the present participle of set a spell.

Meaning of set a spell

Verb

set a spell (third-person singular simple present sets a spell, present participle setting a spell, simple past and past participle set a spell)

  1. (US, idiomatic, countrified dialect) To sit down for a period of time, especially in the company of other people and in order to relax or to engage in casual conversation.
    • [S]he declined his invitation to "Come up and see the old woman and set a spell."1876, Louisa May Alcott, “The Romance of a Summer Day”, in Silver Pitchers: and Independence
    Synonyms:
    visit a spell
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see set, a, spell.
    • “Did the witch set a spell on you, too, Bodvar?”2006 May, Stobie Piel, Prince of Ice, New York, N.Y.: Love Spell, Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc., →ISBN, page 84

Questions about setting a spell

What is setting a spell the present participle of?
Setting a spell is the present participle of set a spell.

Words near setting a spell in the dictionary

  1. settest about
  2. setteth
  3. setteth about
  4. settin'
  5. setting
  6. setting a spell
  7. setting a thief to catch a thief
  8. setting aback
  9. setting about
  10. setting adrift
  11. setting afire

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: setting a spell (page history and authors); set a spell (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: “setting a spell.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/setting_a_spell. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.