Sc. Also 6 speild. [Related to SPALD v. For the vowel cf. prec.]
1. trans. To lay flat or extended; to spread out; to split open. Also refl.
c. 1480. Henryson, Fables, Preach. Swallow, xxvii. Heirefter ȝe sall find als sour as sweit, Quhen ȝe ar speldit [v.r. speildit] on ȝone carlis speit. Ibid. (c. 1480), Orph. & Eurydice, 177. Besyde hym on the bent, He saw speldit a wonder wofull wicht, Nailit full fast.
1513. Douglas, Æneid, V. vii. 19. All flat [he] hym speldit on the dwn sand, In the deid thrawis.
1533. Bellenden, Livy, I. xi. (S.T.S.), I. 68. He … band þis Mecius speldit betuix þe twa cheriottis.
1710. Ruddiman, Gloss. Douglas’ Æneis, s.v., [We] say, ‘He spelded himself on the ice’; and ‘a spelded herring,’ and ‘speldings,’ &c.
1866. Edmondston, Gloss. Shetl., 114. Speld, to split up, to lay open, S.
2. To split or crack. rare–1.
1616. Aberdeen Burgh Reg. (1848), II. 346. The back dyick of the colledge yard … is creuisched and speldit at the wast neuck thairof, and lick[l]ie to faill.
