Spire

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /spʌɪə/

Old English spīr. Cognate with Dutch spier, German Spier, Spiere, Swedish spira.

Full definition of spire

Noun

1. (now rare) The stalk or stem of a plant. from 10th c.
2. A young shoot of a plant; a spear. from 14th c.
• 1913, D. H. Lawrence, ,Clara had pulled a button from a hollyhock spire, and was breaking it to get the seeds.
3. A sharp or tapering point. from 16th c.
• 1907, w, The Dust of Conflict Chapter 1, 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.
4. A tapering structure built on a roof or tower, especially as one of the central architectural features of a church or cathedral roof. from 16th c.The spire of the church rose high above the town.
5. The top, or uppermost point, of anything; the summit. from 17th c.
• Shakespearethe spire and top of praises
6. (mining) A tube or fuse for communicating fire to the charge in blasting.

Verb

1. Of a seed, plant etc.: to sprout, to send forth the early shoots of growth; to germinate. from 14th c.
• 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.5:In gentle Ladies breste and bounteous race
  Of woman kind it fayrest Flowre doth spyre,
  And beareth fruit of honour and all chast desyre.
• MortimerIt is not so apt to spire up as the other sorts, being more inclined to branch into arms.
2. To grow upwards rather than develop horizontally. from 14th c.

From Old French spirer, and its source, Latin spīrāre ("to breathe").

Verb

1. (intransitive, obsolete) To breathe. 14th-16th c.

From Middle French spire.

Noun

1. One of the sinuous foldings of a serpent or other reptile; a coil. from 16th c.
2. A spiral. from 17th c.
3. (geometry) The part of a spiral generated in one revolution of the straight line about the pole.

Anagrams

• peris, piers, Piers, pries, prise