Word.ws English Dictionary

spell

/spɛl/

spell noun: words or a formula supposed to have magical powers.

spell: words or a formula supposed to have magical powers
Image: Epa101, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

spell (plural spells)

  1. Words or a formula supposed to have magical powers.
    • He cast a spell to cure warts.
  2. A magical effect or influence induced by an incantation or formula.
    • under a spell
    • Skies are not so black / Mary took me back / Mary has broken your spell1962, Marty Robbins, “Devil Woman”
    Synonyms:
    cantrip, curse
  3. (obsolete) Speech, discourse.

Verb (1)

spell (third-person singular simple present spells, present participle spelling, simple past and past participle spelled)

  1. To put under the influence of a spell; to affect by a spell; to bewitch; to fascinate; to charm.
    • Vnchaine your spirits now with spelling Charmes,1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    • […] although the Kings Jealousie was thus particular to her, his Affection was as general to others […] Above all, for a time he was much speld with Elianor Talbot […]1647, George Buck, The History and Life and Reigne of Richard the Third, London, Book 4, p. 116
  2. (UK, obsolete, slang) To hanker or yearn (for something).
    • "I have not got a coal ticket with me."
      "I am sorry you should think I was 'spelling' for a coal ticket," he interrupted; "if such an idea had occurred to me, I should have asked for it straightforwardly."1892, Thomas Wright, The pinch of poverty, page 81

Verb (2)

spell (third-person singular simple present spells, present participle spelling, simple past and past participle spelled or (chiefly UK) spelt)

  1. (intransitive, sometimes, transitive) To write or say the letters that form a word or part of a word.
    • I find it difficult to spell because I'm dyslexic.
  2. (obsolete, transitive) To read (something) as though letter by letter; to peruse slowly or with effort.
    • "He'll do," said Bildad, eyeing me, and then went on spelling away at his book in a mumbling tone quite audible.1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick
  3. (transitive) Of letters: to compose (a word).
    • The letters “a”, “n” and “d” spell “and”.
    • In Esperanto each letter has only one sound, and each sound is represented in only one way. The words are pronounced exactly as spelt, every letter being sounded.2008, Helen Fryer, The Esperanto Teacher, BiblioBazaar, LLC, →ISBN, page 13
    Synonyms:
    comprise
  4. (figuratively, transitive) To clarify; to explain in detail.
    • Please spell it out for me.
    • When we get elected, for instance, we get one of these, and we are pretty much told what is in it, and it is our responsibility to read it and understand it, and if we do not, the Ethics Committee, we can call them any time of day and ask them to spell it out for us[…]2003, U.S. Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbel, Hearing before the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, →ISBN
  5. (transitive) To indicate that (some event) will occur; typically followed by a single-word noun.
    • This spells trouble.
    Synonyms:
    forebode, mean, signify
  6. To constitute; to measure.
    • the Saxon heptarchy, when seven kings put together did spell but one in effect1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to XI)
  7. (obsolete) To speak, to declaim.
    • O who can tell / The hidden power of herbes, and might of Magicke spell?1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
  8. (obsolete) To tell; to relate; to teach.
    • As thro’ the caverns dim I wind,
      Might I that legend find,
      By fairies spelt in mystic rhymes,1770, Thomas Warton, “Ode on the Approach of Summer” in A Collection of Poems in Four Volumes, London: G. Pearch, Volume 1, p. 278
  9. To notate or indicate a pitch, interval, or chord using a particular enharmonic spelling.
    • The note D♭ is spelled differently from C♯, even though they sound equivalent.
    • The way you spell a chord reflects its harmonic function.

Verb (3)

spell (third-person singular simple present spells, present participle spelling, simple past and past participle spelled or spelt)

  1. (transitive) To work in place of (someone).
    • to spell the helmsman
  2. (transitive) To rest (someone or something), to give someone or something a rest or break.
    • They spelled the horses and rested in the shade of some trees near a brook.
  3. (colloquial, intransitive) To rest from work for a time.

Noun (2)

spell (plural spells)

  1. A shift (of work); (rare) a set of workers responsible for a specific turn of labour.
  2. (informal) A definite period (of work or other activity).
    • A chap named Eleazir Kendrick and I had chummed in together the summer afore and built a fish-weir and shanty at Setuckit Point, down Orham way. For a spell we done pretty well. Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty...1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC
    • I had a job in the great North Woods / Workin' as a cook for a spell / But I never did like it all that much / And one day the ax just fell1975, Bob Dylan, “Tangled Up in Blue”
  3. (colloquial) An indefinite period of time (usually with a qualifier); by extension, a relatively short distance.
    • Even Mrs. Harker seems to lose sight of her trouble for whole spells. [...] When he had spoken, Mina's long spell of silence made me look at her.1897, Bram Stoker, chapter 24, in Dracula, HTML edition
    • So after a short spell in the brass foundry the wisest course was to follow with a similar period in the steel foundry, where much important work was done, including the manufacture of centres for wheels.1944 November and December, A Former Pupil, “Some Memories of Crewe Works—II”, in Railway Magazine, page 343
  4. A period of rest; time off.
  5. (US, colloquial) A period of illness, or sudden interval of bad spirits, disease etc.
  6. An uninterrupted series of alternate overs bowled by a single bowler.

Noun (3)

spell (plural spells)

  1. (Northern England) A splinter, usually of wood; a spelk.
    • To swadle a bowe much about wyth bandes, verye seldome dothe anye good, excepte it be to kepe downe a spel in the backe.1545, Roger Ascham, Toxophilus, the Schole of Shootinge […], London: […] Edouardi Whytchurch, →OCLC
  2. The wooden bat in the game of trap ball, or knurr and spell.

Proper noun capitalized: Spell

Spell (plural Spells)

  1. A surname.

spell meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

spell in Hindi

spell, incantation
अंछर añchar
a spell
मूर्छन mūrchan
a spell, witchcraft
मूठ mūṭh

spell in Tamil

எழுத்துப்பிழை, எழுத்துப்பிழை செய்ய

spell in Marathi

अक्षरविन्यास करण्यासाठी, शब्दलेखन करणे

spell in Urdu

magical incantation
منتر mantar, جادو jādū, سحر saihir, ٹونا tōnā, ٹوٹکا ṭōṭkā
More languagesFewer languages
spell in Bengali
তাঁক tãk
spell in Telugu
గుణించు guṇiñcu
spell in Malayalam
അക്ഷരവിന്യാസം ചെയ്യാൻ, അക്ഷരവിന്യാസം നടത്താൻ
spell in Kannada
ಪದಬರಿಗೆ ಹೇಳು
spell in Punjabi
ਸਪੈੱਲ, ਸਪੈਲ, ਸਪੈਲਿੰਗ ਕਰਨ ਲਈ
spell in Gujarati
સ્પેલ, જોડણી કરવી
spell in Odia
ବାନାନ କରିବା ପାଇଁ, ବାନାନ କରିବା
spell in Sanskrit
शाप śāpa, विद्या vidyā́, तन्त्र tántra, करण káraṇa
spell in Nepali
स्पेल, हिज्जे गर्न, बानान गर्न
spell in Tagalog
tawal
spell in Arabic
تَعْوِيذَة taʕwīḏa, هَجَّى hajjā, تَهَجَّى tahajjā
spell in Malay
jampi, mantera, mengeja
spell in Indonesian
mantra, mengeja
spell in Persian
طلسم, هجی کردن, املاء کردن
spell in Thai
สะกด sà-gòt
spell in Vietnamese
thần chú, đánh vần
Kashmiri
مٲنٛتھٕر mạ̄nthụr

Examples of spell in a sentence

  • A dominant seventh chord is spelled with a diminished seventh interval, not a major sixth.
  • I believe your love has placed its spell on me2020, Deftones, The Spell of Mathematics:
  • Despite his ill-fated spell at Anfield, he received a warm reception from the same Liverpool fans he struggled to win over before being sacked midway through last season.2012 April 22, Sam Sheringham, “Liverpool 0-1 West Brom”, in BBC Sport:
  • [...] Class 37s became synonymous with the depot, and over the years more than a third of the class had a spell allocated to the shed.2020 June 17, John Crosse, “Thornaby's traction transition”, in Rail, page 65:

All 40 example sentences with spell

Synonyms of spell

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of spell

Forms of spell

Noun
pluralspells
Verb
third-person singular presentspells
present participlespelling
past participlespelled
pastspelled
past participle UKspelt
past UKspelt
past participlespelt
pastspelt
Proper noun
pluralSpells

Past tense of spell: spelled

Plural of spell: spells

Origin of spell

From Middle English spell, spel, from Old English spell (“news, story”), from Proto-Germanic *spellą (“speech, account, tale”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)pel- (“to tell”) or from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- (“to speak, to sound”) with the s-mobile prefix. Cognate with dialectal German Spill, Icelandic spjall (“discussion, talk”), spjalla (“to discuss, to talk”), guðspjall (“gospel”) and Albanian fjalë (“word”).

From Middle English spellen, from Anglo-Norman espeler, espeleir, Old French espeller, espeler (compare Modern French épeler), from Frankish *spelōn, merged with native Old English spellian (“to tell, speak”), both eventually from Proto-Germanic *spellōną (“to speak”). Related with etymology 1. The sense “indicate a future event” probably in part a backformation from forespell (literally “to tell in advance”).

From Middle English spelen, from Old English spelian (“to represent, take or stand in the place of another, act as a representative of another”), akin to Middle English spale (“a rest or break”), Old English spala (“representative, substitute”).

Words formed from spell

Phrases with spell

11 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with spell

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about spell

What does spell mean?
Spell means words or a formula supposed to have magical powers.
What is spell in Hindi?
Spell in Hindi is अंछर (añchar), मूर्छन (mūrchan), मूठ (mūṭh). See Spell meaning in Hindi.
How do you use spell in a sentence?
A dominant seventh chord is spelled with a diminished seventh interval, not a major sixth.
What part of speech is spell?
Spell can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce spell?
Spell is pronounced /spɛl/.
What is the plural of spell?
The plural of spell is spells.

Words near spell in the dictionary

  1. spelk
  2. spelked
  3. spelking
  4. spelks
  5. spelky
  6. spell
  7. spell casting
  8. spell castings
  9. spell check
  10. spell checked
  11. spell checker

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: spell (page history and authors); Spell (page history and authors); अंछर (Hindi) (page history and authors); spell (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); spell (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); তাঁক (Bengali) (page history and authors); గుణించు (Telugu) (page history and authors); spell (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); spell (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); spell (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); spell (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); spell (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); करण (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); spell (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-spell.ogg, en-au-spell.ogg.

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