Word.ws English Dictionary

spaynel

spaynel is the obsolete spelling of spaniel.

Meaning of spaniel

Noun

spaniel (plural spaniels)

  1. Any of various small to medium-sized breeds of gun dog having a broad muzzle, long, wavy fur and long ears that hang at the side of the head, bred for flushing and retrieving game.
  2. A cringing, fawning person.
    • Pro[theus].[…]Yet (Spaniel-like) the more ſhe ſpurnes my loue, / The more it growes, and fawneth on her ſtill;c. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...

See all 3 meanings of spaniel

Forms of spaynel

pluralspaynels

Questions about spaynel

What is spaynel the obsolete spelling of?
Spaynel is the obsolete spelling of spaniel.

Words near spaynel in the dictionary

  1. spayer
  2. spayers
  3. spaying
  4. spayings
  5. Spaynard
  6. spaynel
  7. spaynels
  8. Spaynnards
  9. spays
  10. spaz
  11. spaz attack

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: spaynel (page history and authors); spaniel (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: “spaynel.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/spaynel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.