Word.ws English Dictionary

spalt

/spɔːlt/

spalt noun: spelter.

Noun

spalt (uncountable)

  1. spelter.

Adjective

spalt (comparative more spalt, superlative most spalt)

  1. brittle.
    • Note: (US) Spalted wood is that which has been cut from a naturally cured, dead, or dying hardwood tree whose wood is normally light in color (such as pecan), and which exhibits patterns of dark stain (crazed) lines and splotches caused by microorganisms and/or fungus. Although slightly more...
    • a brittle, spalt wood1772, William Ellis, Husbandry, Abridged
  2. heedless; clumsy; pert; saucy.

Verb

spalt (third-person singular simple present spalts, present participle spalting, simple past and past participle spalted)

  1. (ambitransitive) To break off pieces, or have them broken off, especially with an axe etc; to splinter.
    Synonyms:
    spall

Synonyms of spalt

Forms of spalt

Adjective
comparativemore spalt
superlativemost spalt
Verb
third-person singular presentspalts
present participlespalting
past participlespalted
pastspalted

Origin of spalt

Compare German Spalt (“stein”), from spalten (“to split”).

Words that rhyme with spalt

Questions about spalt

What does spalt mean?
Spalt means spelter.
What part of speech is spalt?
Spalt can be a noun, an adjective or a verb.
How do you pronounce spalt?
Spalt is pronounced /spɔːlt/.

Words near spalt in the dictionary

  1. Spallones
  2. spalls
  3. Spalnoye
  4. spalpeen
  5. spalpeens
  6. spalt
  7. spalted
  8. spalting
  9. spaltings
  10. spalts
  11. spam

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: spalt (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-spalt.wav.

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