spoondrift
Syllables: spoon·driftUK/ˈspuːndɹɪft//ˈspundɹɪft/
spoondrift is the alternative form of spindrift.
Meaning of spindrift
Noun
spindrift (countable and uncountable, plural spindrifts)
- Sea spray (clouds of water droplets) blown from the tops of waves by the wind and whipped along the surface of the sea.
- There was no snow as yet up here at Dare; but wild tempests shaking the house to its foundations; and brief gleams of stormy sunlight lighting up the grey spindrift as it was whirled shorewards from the breaking seas; […]1878, William Black, “First Impressions”, in Macleod of Dare. […], volume II, London: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, page 252
- Clouds of sand, snow, etc., whipped along the ground by the wind.
Forms of spoondrift
| plural | spoondrifts |
|---|---|
| alternative form | spoon-drift |
Origin of spoondrift
Probably a variant of Scots spindrift. The Oxford English Dictionary suggests it is derived from spoon + drift (“mass of matter driven or forced onward together in a body, etc., especially by wind or water”), spoon being a variant of spoom (“to sail briskly with the wind astern, with or without sails hoisted”), but this is doubted by the Scottish National Dictionary: see spindrift.
Questions about spoondrift
- What is spoondrift the alternative form of?
- Spoondrift is the alternative form of spindrift.
- How do you pronounce spoondrift?
- Spoondrift is pronounced /ˈspuːndɹɪft/ (UK).
Words near spoondrift in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: spoondrift (page history and authors); spindrift (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)-Flame, not lame-spoondrift.wav.
Cite this entry: “spoondrift.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/spoondrift. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.