Word.ws English Dictionary

spane

/speɪn/

spane verb: to wean; to spean.

Verb

spane (third-person singular simple present spanes, present participle spaning, simple past and past participle spaned)

  1. (UK, dialectal, obsolete) To wean; to spean.
    • to spane a child
    • For quotations using this term, see Citations:spane.

Forms of spane

third-person singular presentspanes
present participlespaning
past participlespaned
pastspaned
alternative formspean
alternative formspain

Origin of spane

From Middle English spanen, probably from Middle Dutch spanen, spenen or Middle Low German spānen, spēnen, spōnen (“to wean”), ultimately from the merger of Proto-West Germanic *spanōn and *spannjan, from Proto-Germanic *spanōną and *spanjaną (“to wean”), from Proto-Germanic *spanō, *spenô (“teat”), from Proto-Indo-European *pstḗn (“breast; teat”). Cognate with Dutch spenen (“to wean”), German spänen (“to wean”), Old French espanir (“to wean”) (from Germanic).

Questions about spane

What does spane mean?
Spane means to wean; to spean.
What part of speech is spane?
Spane is a verb.
How do you pronounce spane?
Spane is pronounced /speɪn/.
What is the past tense of spane?
The past tense of spane is spaned.

Words near spane in the dictionary

  1. spandrelled
  2. spandrels
  3. spandril
  4. spandrils
  5. spandy
  6. spane
  7. spaned
  8. spanemia
  9. spanemic
  10. spaneria
  11. spanes

Source and license

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