Word.ws English Dictionary

spire

UK/spaɪə//ˈspaɪ.ɚ/

spire noun: the stalk or stem of a plant.

Noun (1)

spire (plural spires)

  1. (archaic) The stalk or stem of a plant.
  2. A young shoot of a plant; a spear.
    • Clara had pulled a button from a hollyhock spire, and was breaking it to get the seeds.1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “Chapter 12”, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC
  3. Any of various tall grasses, rushes, or sedges, such as the marram, the reed canary-grass, etc.
  4. A sharp or tapering point.
    • A beech wood with silver firs in it rolled down the face of the hill, and the maze of leafless twigs and dusky spires cut sharp against the soft blueness of the evening sky.1907 January, Harold Bindloss, chapter 1, in The Dust of Conflict, 1st Canadian edition, Toronto, Ont.: McLeod & Allen, →OCLC
    • This park’s strange and beautiful rock formations were formed by the Yellowstone River and various streams that have cut through the rock over millions of years, carving out hoodoos, spires and caprocks. The name Makoshika comes from a Lakota word for badlands.2018 July 17, Autumn Spanne, “Check out these crazy rock formations across the United States”, in CNN
  5. A tapering structure built on a roof or tower, especially as one of the central architectural features of a church or cathedral roof.
    • The spire of the church rose high above the town.
    Synonyms:
    steeple
  6. The top, or uppermost point, of anything; the summit.
    • the spire and top of praisesc. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
  7. A tube or fuse for communicating fire to the charge in blasting.

Verb (1)

spire (third-person singular simple present spires, present participle spiring, simple past and past participle spired)

  1. (plant etc.) to sprout, to send forth the early shoots of growth; to germinate.
    • In gentle Ladies breste and bounteous race / Of woman kind it fayrest Flowre doth spyre, / And beareth fruit of honour and all chast desyre.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
    • It is not so apt to spire up as the other sorts, being more inclined to branch into arms.1707, J[ohn] Mortimer, The Whole Art of Husbandry; or, The Way of Managing and Improving of Land. […], London: […] J[ohn] H[umphreys] for H[enry] Mortlock […], and J[onathan] Robinson […], →OCLC
  2. To grow upwards rather than develop horizontally.
  3. (transitive) To furnish with a spire.

Verb (2)

spire (third-person singular simple present spires, present participle spiring, simple past and past participle spired)

  1. (intransitive, obsolete) To breathe.

Noun (2)

spire (plural spires)

  1. One of the sinuous foldings of a serpent or other reptile; a coil.
    • A dragon's fiery form bely'd the god:
      Sublime on radiant spires he rode.1700, [John] Dryden, “Alexander’s Feast; or, The Power of Musique. An Ode, in Honour of St. Cecelia’s Day.”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC
  2. A spiral.
  3. The part of a spiral generated in one revolution of the straight line about the pole.

spire meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

spire in Hindi

स्पायर

spire in Tamil

சங்குப்புரி, தூபி

spire in Marathi

tapering architectural structure
मनोरा manorā, मेरुशिखर meruśikhar

spire in Urdu

سپائر, اسپائر
More languagesFewer languages
spire in Bengali
স্পায়ার
spire in Telugu
స్పైర్
spire in Malayalam
കൂർത്ത ശിഖരം, ഗോപുരാഗ്രം, ചൂളി, ചൂളിക
spire in Punjabi
ਸਪਾਇਰ
spire in Gujarati
સ્પાયર
spire in Odia
ସ୍ପାଯ଼ାର
spire in Nepali
स्पायर, स्पाइर गर्न, स्पायर गर्न

Examples of spire in a sentence

  • Hedge wizards, perhaps, but never someone as knowledgeable and powerful as a spire wizard.
  • There are domes, spires, bell towers and chimneys of various heights and shapes, but no shot tower.
  • Subulitaceans have spindle- or awl- shaped shells, commonly slender and pointed at the apex of the spire.

All 26 example sentences with spire

Synonyms of spire

Forms of spire

Noun
pluralspires
Verb
third-person singular presentspires
present participlespiring
past participlespired
pastspired

Plural of spire: spires

Origin of spire

From Middle English spire, spyre, spier, spir, from Old English spīr, from Proto-Germanic *spīrō, *spīrǭ (“peak; point; tip; stalk”). Cognate with Dutch spier, German Low German Spier, German Spier, Spiere, Danish spir, Norwegian spir and spire, Swedish spira, Icelandic spíra.

From Old French spirer, and its source, Latin spīrō (“to breathe”).

From Middle French spire.

Words formed from spire

Words that rhyme with spire

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about spire

What does spire mean?
Spire means the stalk or stem of a plant.
What is spire in Hindi?
Spire in Hindi is स्पायर. See Spire meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is spire?
Spire can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce spire?
Spire is pronounced /spaɪə/ (UK).
What is the plural of spire?
The plural of spire is spires.

Words near spire in the dictionary

  1. spirations
  2. spiravirus
  3. spiraviruses
  4. spiraxid
  5. spiraxids
  6. spire
  7. spirea
  8. spireas
  9. spired
  10. spireless
  11. spirelet

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: spire (page history and authors); spire (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); spire (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); spire (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); spire (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); spire (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); spire (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); spire (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); spire (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); spire (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); spire (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-spire.ogg.

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