the stem of SPILL v. in combination.

1

  † 1.  In the sense ‘that spoils, mars, destroys or wastes,’ as spill-berry, -bread, -cause, -good, -love, -pain (= bread), -soul, -time. Obs.

2

c. 1563.  Thersites, in Four Old Pl. (1848), 82. The spere of spanysshe *spylbery sprente wt spiteful spottes.

3

c. 1320.  in Rel. Antiq., I. 122. My wyf that shulde be;… Hue clepeth me *spille-bred.

4

1566.  Pasquine in a Traunce, 64 b. Doe they vse Bartolus, and Baldus, and suche other *spill causes to set men togither by the eares?

5

1626.  Minsheu, 683/1. *Spill-good, vi[de] Spend-thrift.

6

1377.  Langl., P. Pl., B. XIX. 336. [Pride] sente forth … his spye *spille-loue, one speke-yuel-byhynde.

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c. 1460.  Towneley Myst. xxiv. 124. Secundus tortor. *Spyll-payn in fayth I hight.

8

1591.  Fraunce, C’tess Pembroke’s Yuychurch, I. C j. So sore inchaunted with *spill-soule spells.

9

1393.  Langl., P. Pl., C. VI. 28. An ydel man þow semest,… oþer a *spille-tyme.

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  2.  dial. In the sense ‘spoilt,’ as spill-wood.

11

1847.  Halliwell, Spilwood, refuse of wood, or wood spilt by the sawyers. South.

12

1852–83.  in Hampshire and Sussex glossaries.

13

  3.  In the sense ‘constructed for (or by) the passage of surplus water, for receiving overflow liquid, etc.,’ as spill-back, -box, channel, stream, -trough, -water, -way.

14

1899.  F. H. King, Irrigation & Drainage, vi. 247. The depth of the water over the lip of the *spill-back. Ibid., vi. 245. The *spill-box … is, perhaps, as satisfactory a means for maintaining a nearly uniform head against … an opening as has yet been devised.

15

1888.  W. W. Hunter, in 19th Cent., Jan., 43. The Bhagirathi,… for centuries a mere *spill-stream from the parent Ganges.

16

1843.  Holtzapffel, Turning, I. 327. The flask … is put on the surface of the pouring or *spill-trough.

17

1875.  Knight, Dict. Mech., 2268/1. Spill-trough, (Brass-founding), the trough against which the inclined flask rests while the metal is being poured from the crucible.

18

1852.  Burn, Techn. Dict., II. s.v., *Spill-water, réservoir, excavation pour recevoir les inondations d’une rivière.

19

1875.  Alex. Smith, New Hist. Aberdeensh., I. 75. The Commissioners resolved to make … a spill-water to the south of the harbour.

20

1889.  Pall Mall Gaz., 26 June, 1/3. The by-wash, or, as the Americans term it, the *spill-way was utterly insufficient.

21

1892.  Trans. Amer. Soc. Civil Eng., XXVI. 640. The weir … consisted partly of stortebed or spillway.

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