Spall

Pronunciation

• IPA: /spɔːl/

From Middle English spalle ("a chip") (first documented in 1440), of uncertain origin. Perhaps from the Middle English verb spald ("to split") (c.1400), from Middle Low German spalden (""), cognate with Old High German spaltan ("to split")

Alternative forms

• spawl

Full definition of spall

Noun

1. A splinter, fragment or chip, especially of stone.
• 1974, GB Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, New York 2007, p. 13:My father knew Bert Le Feuvre, the foreman of Griffith's yard, and there was a little heap of spawls waiting ready every night in summer after school for me to crack.

Verb

1. (transitive) To break into fragments or small pieces.
2. (transitive) To reduce, as irregular blocks of stone, to an approximately level surface by hammering.

From Italian spalla.

Noun

1. (obsolete, rare) The shoulder.
• 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.vi:Their mightie strokes their haberieons dismayld,
  And naked made each others manly spalles ....

Anagrams

• palls