Dictionary

spilth en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /spɪlθ/
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

From spill + -th (abstract nominal suffix). Compare Old English *spilþ, spild (“annihilation, destruction, ruin”).

Meanings

1. (archaic, countable, uncountable) Spillage; spilled material.
   • I tempted his blood and his flesh, / Hid in roses my mesh, / Choicest cates and the flagon's best spilth— / Still he kept to his filth! 1855, Robert Browning, “Instans Tyrannus”, in Men and Women, lines 19–22:
   • Like a vast spider suspended by a metal chord, a candelabrum presided over the room nine feet above the floor-boards. From its sweeping arms of iron, long stalactites of wax lowered their pale spilths drip by drip, drip by drip. 1946, Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, →OCLC:
   • Baked fish lay cooling on the table, and there was a great spilth of wine on the floor. 1985, Anthony Burgess, Kingdom of the Wicked:

Forms