Also 5 spilt, spylt, 6 spelte, 7 spealt. [OE. spelt, = MDu. spelte, spelt (Du. spelt, WFris. spjelte), OS. spelta (MLG. spelte), OHG. spelza (MHG. spelze, spelte, G. spelz, spelt), a. late L. spelta (from c. 400, mentioned as a foreign word answering to the older L. far), whence also It. spelta, spelda, Sp. espelta, OF. spelte, spealte, spiautre, espeltre, espiautre, etc., mod.F. épeautre.
The evidence indicates that the word had no continuous history in Eng., and little currency, until the 16th cent.]
1. A species of grain (Triticum spelta) related to wheat, formerly much cultivated in southern Europe and still grown in some districts.
a. 1000. in Wr.-Wülcker, 273. Faar, spelt. Ibid., 401. Farris, hwætes, speltes. Ibid., 405. Far serotina, spelt samgrene.
1392. Earl Derby’s Exp. (Camden), 225. Pro spelt per ipsum empt’ ibidem [sc. at Modon].
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVII. lxxxi. (Bodl. MS.). Some greyne is noþer in codde noþer in huole as barlich & spilt [v.r. spylt].
1562. Turner, Herbal, II. (1568), 85. The stalkes [of Phalaris] ar … much lyke vnto the strawes of spelt. Ibid., 133. Semen is called … in Duche speltz; it may in English be called spelt.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, 164. This plant groweth amongst wheate and Spelte, in good frutefull groundes.
1597. Gerarde, Herbal, I. xlii. 61. Spelt is like to wheate in stalks and eare.
a. 1656. Ussher, Ann. (1658), 773. He passed it in 30 dayes thorough unbeaten paths, where his food was spelt and dates.
1661. Lovell, Hist. Anim. & Min., 55. The meale of spelt, in red Wine helpeth the stingings of Scorpions, applied warme.
1736. Bailey, Houshold Dict., s.v. Brawn, Bread made of Spelt is hard of digestion.
1762. Mills, Pract. Husb., I. 408. Spelt, though commonly reckoned a summer corn, is sowed either in autumn, or in the spring.
1805–6. Cary, Dante, Inf., XIII. 101. There sprouting, as a grain of spelt, It rises to a sapling.
1855. Singleton, Virgil, I. 75. There, upon the season being changed, You’ll sow the golden spelt.
1884. trans. De Candolle’s Orig. Cultivated Pl., 362. Spelt is now hardly cultivated out of south Germany and German-Switzerland.
2. attrib., as spelt-cake, -corn, -ridge, -wheat.
1610. W. Folkingham, Art of Survey, I. xi. 35. Spelt-corne in a fat moist layer degenerats from bad to better viz. in three yeeres space to Wheat.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, II. 87/1. Spelt-Corn is lesser and blacker than Wheat.
1694. Motteux, Rabelais, II. Let. i. 3. Oats, Spelt-Corn, and Barly.
1753. Chambers’ Cycl., Suppl. s.v. Zea, The bread made of the spelt corn … is lighter and whiter than any other bread.
1832. Veg. Subst. Food of Man, 35. Spelt Wheat—Triticum spelta—is imagined to have been the Triticum of the Romans, and the Zea of the Greeks.
1853. Soyer, Pantropheon, 43. Among other delicate dishes … he had ordered a spelt cake to be made.
