Orig. Sc. Also 7 spene-, 8 speendrift. [var. of SPOONDRIFT, app. due to local Sc. pronunciations of spoon; the form speen- is north-eastern, spin- south-western.] Continuous driving of spray; spoondrift.
Common in English writers from c. 1880, probably at first under the influence of W. Black’s novels.
1600. Melvill, Diary (1842), 169. A how wa and spenedrift.
1755. R. Forbes, Ajax’ Speech, 31. Twa-three swankies riding at the hand-gallop, garring the dubs flee about them like speen-drift.
1823. Galt, Entail, II. i. 9. Like the blast that brushes the waves of the ocean into spindrift.
1866. MacLeod, in Gd. Words, Feb., 109. It … began to blow with furious gusts which angrily tore the small waves of the inland sea into spindrift.
1879. Black, Macleod of D., xxix. Brief gleams of stormy sunlight lighting up the grey spindrift.
1883. G. C. Davies, Norfolk Broads, xxvii. The spindrift hid them every minute, and it appeared impossible they could live in such a boil.
