Dictionary

spillover en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈspɪlˌoː.və/ (Wales) without the toe–tow merger
• [ˈspɪlˌoːvɚ] monophthongization
• /ˈspɪlˌəʉ̯.və/ (Australia)
• /ˈspəlˌɐʉ̯.və/ (New-Zealand)
• (Texas) audio
• /ˈspɪlˌəʊ̯.və/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• /ˈspɪlˌo.vəɾ/ (Scotland)
• /ˈspɪlˌoʊ̯.vɚ/ (Canadian, General-American, Standard)
• /ˈspɪlˌaʊæː/ (Northumbria)

Etymology

From spill + over.

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) That which overflows; the excess or side effect.
   • And Mr. Pike, for practically all of his sixty-nine years, has stood his watch-and-watch, with many a spill-over of watches into watches. 1914, Jack London, The Mutiny of the Elsinore, Chapter XLIV:
   • The spillover from the dam due to the heavy rains will run down this channel and harmlessly dump into that river, we hope.
   • The pool table is a sort of spill-over from Upstairs, the suspiciously-named Ramrod Room, which operates almost as a separate bar. 1976 April 3, David Brill, “Twelve Carter - 17 years for and by gays”, in Gay Community News, page 13:
   • The spillover from this war will be many little massacres of civilians by civilians.
   • This could mean European countries need to import more food from countries like Brazil, which would incentivize deforestation and add up to more environmental hidden costs there. Such cross-border spillover is one reason Bobo isn’t a big fan of the true-cost accounting approach the FAO used to come up with its hidden cost figures. 2023 November 6, Matt Reynolds, “The World's Broken Food System Costs $12.7 Trillion a Year”, in Wired:
2. (countable, uncountable) The spread of infectious disease between different species of animal and particularly to humans.
   • We’re not establishing the kind of safe practices that will minimize the opportunity for spillover. If we better understood where these viruses are circulating and understood that ecology, we would have the potential to disrupt and minimize the risk of spillover. 2020 March 12, Kevin Berger, “The Man Who Saw the Pandemic Coming”, in Nautilus, archived from the original on 15 Mar 2020:

Forms

Deriveds

spillover effect

Relateds

zoonosis