📖 S — The English dictionary · page 78

speedometer — Everyday, meaning 1: An instrument in a car, bike, train or other vehicle that shows how fast it is going.↗ Example: The speedometer showed 30 miles per hour.↗ · Dad checked the speedometer as we passed the school.↗ · My bike has a little speedometer on the handlebars.↗ · In Ireland, speedometers show kilometres per hour.↗ · The needle on the speedometer went up as the train sped along.↗ · The speedometer reads 0 when the car is parked.↗

speedwell — Everyday, meaning 1: A small wild plant with tiny bright blue flowers, often found in grass, lawns and hedges.↗ Example: Tiny blue speedwell flowers grew all over the lawn.↗ · We found speedwell on our nature walk.↗ · Speedwell flowers have four petals.↗ · The bees visited the speedwell in the hedge.↗ · Germander speedwell is a common British wildflower.↗ · Speedwell flowers close up when it rains.↗

speedy — Everyday, meaning 1: Speedy means fast, moving or happening quickly: a speedy car, a speedy runner.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: Speedy also means happening soon, without delay.↗ e.g. "Get well soon and have a speedy recovery."↗ Example: The cheetah is the speediest land animal.↗ · Thanks for your speedy reply!↗ · We wish Grandpa a speedy recovery.↗ · The shop promised speedy delivery.↗ · My speedy little dog always wins the race.↗ · We had a speedy lunch before the match.↗ · A speedy decision is not always a good one.↗ · As conductor of shades, Hermes was always invoked by the dying to grant them a safe and speedy passage across the Styx.↗

spell — Everyday, meaning 1: To spell a word is to say or write its letters in the right order.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (noun) A spell is a set of magic words that makes something happen in stories.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: (noun) A short period of time: a spell of sunny weather.↗ Everyday, meaning 4: (verb) To spell something out is to explain it very clearly; "spell trouble" means to be a sign that something bad will happen.↗ Example: How do you spell "necessary"?↗ · Can you spell your name for me?↗ · The witch cast a spell on the prince.↗ · The princess was under a spell.↗ · We had a spell of warm weather.↗ · Dark clouds spell trouble for the picnic.↗ · Let me spell it out for you.↗ · "How can I break this spell?" said their sister.↗ · Which hearkeneth not to the voice of charmers, or of the most cunning binder of spells.↗ (Writings PSA.58.6, JPS 1917)↗

spellbound — Everyday, meaning 1: So interested or amazed by something that you cannot look away or think of anything else.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: In fairy tales: held under a magic spell.↗ Example: The children sat spellbound as the storyteller spoke.↗ · We watched the fireworks spellbound.↗ · The magician held the audience spellbound.↗ · Rat and Mole stood spellbound by the strange music.↗ · In the tale, the princess was spellbound for a hundred years.↗ · I was spellbound by the whale swimming beside the boat.↗ · At last the King came himself, and he likewise was spellbound by the beauty of the music.↗

speller — Everyday, meaning 1: A speller is a person who spells words, described as good or bad at it: she's a good speller.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (US, Canada) A speller is also a school book of spelling lists and exercises.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: A spell-checker on a computer is sometimes called a speller.↗ Example: My sister is a brilliant speller.↗ · I'm a terrible speller, so I check my work carefully.↗ · Fifty spellers took part in the spelling bee.↗ · Open your spellers to page 12.↗ · The best speller in the class won a dictionary.↗ · The speller on my laptop missed my mistake.↗ · Good spellers read a lot.↗

spelling — Everyday, meaning 1: Spelling is the way words are written with letters in the right order.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: Spelling is the skill of writing words correctly.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: A spelling is the way one word is written.↗ Everyday, meaning 4: Spellings (UK) are a list of words to learn to spell for a test.↗ Example: I got ten out of ten in my spelling test.↗ · Check your spelling before you hand it in.↗ · There's a spelling mistake in this sentence.↗ · "Colour" is the British spelling and "color" is the American spelling.↗ · We learned our spellings for Friday.↗ · She won the school spelling bee.↗ · Good spelling makes your writing easier to read.↗ · He is spelling his name slowly for the teacher.↗ · The author uses some alternative spellings--for example, "arn't" rather than "aren't", "dulness" rather than "dullness", both "shan't" and "sha'n't"--which have been left unchanged.↗ · Private Hermetic MSS. have alone the correct names and spelling.↗ (Sefer Yetzirah, Westcott 1893)↗ · Such diagrams are often arranged so that the letter א Alef is across from ל Lamed, spelling the name אֵל El, God.↗ (Sefer Yetzirah, Sefaria community translation)↗

spelt — Everyday, meaning 1: Wrote or said the letters of a word in the right order.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: Was the letters of a word, as in «c-a-t spelt cat».↗ Everyday, meaning 3: (informal) Meant or caused, as in «the rain spelt trouble for the picnic».↗ Everyday, meaning 4: A kind of old wheat grain used to make flour and bread.↗ Example: I spelt «necessary» wrong in my spelling test.↗ · How is your name spelt?↗ · The teacher spelt out the rules very clearly.↗ · The dark clouds spelt trouble for the sports day.↗ · Is «colour» spelt with a «u» in Australia?↗ Yes.↗ · Dad bakes bread with spelt flour.↗ · She spelt every word correctly and got full marks.↗ · The letters on the fridge spelt «HELLO».↗ · Why, the words are spelt differently, and mean quite different things.↗ · But the wheat and the spelt were not smitten; for they ripen late. — (Torah EXO.9.32, JPS 1917)↗

spend — Everyday, meaning 1: To spend is to pay out money.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: To spend time is to use it doing something or being somewhere: «spend a day at the zoo».↗ Example: How much does Anna spend?↗ · Sam spent 12 cents on sweets and 8 cents on a pen.↗ · Max spends 2 hours reading.↗ · We spent the weekend at Gran's.↗ · Don't spend all your pocket money at once.↗ · How much time do you spend on homework?↗ · She spent 5 dollars and saved 3.↗ · We spent the night in a tent.↗ · "Have you spent the night comfortably?"↗ · I will heap evils upon them; I will spend Mine arrows upon them; (Torah DEU.32.23, JPS 1917)↗ · And the water in the bottle was spent, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs.↗ (Torah GEN.21.15, JPS 1917)↗ · And your strength shall be spent in vain; for your land shall not yield her produce, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruit.↗ (Torah LEV.26.20, JPS 1917)↗ · My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope.↗ (Writings JOB.7.6, JPS 1917)↗ · They spend their days in prosperity, and peacefully they go down to the grave.↗ (Writings JOB.21.13, JPS 1917)↗ · If they hearken and serve Him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures.↗ (Writings JOB.36.11, JPS 1917)↗

spendthrift — Everyday, meaning 1: A spendthrift is a person who spends money fast and carelessly, until none is left.↗ Example: A spendthrift spends all his money at once.↗ · The young man was a great spendthrift and had run through all his money.↗ · Here a young spendthrift is warned in a dream.↗

sperm — Everyday, meaning 1: A sperm is a tiny male cell made by male animals and men; when a sperm joins with an egg cell from a female, a new baby animal or baby human can start to grow.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: In plants, the male cells that join with egg cells are carried in pollen.↗ Example: A baby starts when a sperm and an egg join.↗ · A sperm cell has a long tail to help it swim.↗ · Half of your DNA came from the sperm and half from the egg.↗ · Frogs release eggs and sperm into the pond.↗ · Sperm are much too small to see without a microscope.↗ · The sperm whale is the largest toothed whale.↗

spew — In Jewish tradition, meaning 1: To throw up food or drink from the stomach; to vomit.↗ Example: And thou shalt say unto them: Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Drink ye, and be drunken, and spew, and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you.↗ (Prophets JER.25.27, JPS 1917)↗

spf — Everyday, meaning 1: Short for «sun protection factor»: a number on sun cream showing how well it protects skin from the sun's burning rays (UVB).↗ Example: Use sun cream with at least SPF 30.↗ · My sun cream is SPF 50.↗ · Check the SPF number on the bottle.↗ · Even with high SPF, you need a hat and shade.↗ · Put sun cream on again after swimming.↗ · SPF stands for «sun protection factor».↗ · Lip balm with SPF protects your lips too.↗ · Pale skin burns quickly, so choose a high SPF.↗

sphagnum — Everyday, meaning 1: A kind of soft moss that grows in wet bogs and can hold huge amounts of water; it slowly turns into peat.↗ Example: Sphagnum moss can hold many times its weight in water.↗ · Peat bogs are made of old sphagnum.↗ · In World War I, people collected sphagnum to dress wounds.↗ · Bog bodies were preserved by sphagnum and peat.↗ · Gardeners line baskets with sphagnum moss.↗ · Protecting bogs with sphagnum helps store carbon.↗

sphere — Everyday, meaning 1: A round solid shape like a ball, where every point on the surface is the same distance from the centre.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: An area of activity, interest or power: the sphere of science.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: (science) A layer around the Earth: atmosphere, hemisphere.↗ Everyday, meaning 4: In old writings, the spheres are the heavens, the great rings in the sky that carry the stars and planets.↗ Example: A football is a sphere.↗ · A sphere has one curved face and no edges.↗ · The Earth is nearly a sphere.↗ · A bubble is a sphere.↗ · Half a sphere is called a hemisphere.↗ · Music is her sphere of interest.↗ · Through the spheres echoed the words:↗ · These are the ten spheres of existence out of nothing.↗ (Sefer Yetzirah, Kalisch 1877)↗ · If the sphere be rotated forward, good is implied, if in a retrograde manner evil is intended.↗ (Sefer Yetzirah, Westcott 1887)↗ · These twenty-two letters, the foundations, He arranged as on a sphere, with two hundred and thirty-one modes of entrance.↗ (Sefer Yetzirah, Westcott 1887)↗

spherical — Everyday, meaning 1: Spherical means shaped like a ball, round in every direction, like a sphere.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: In maths, a spherical object has every point on its surface the same distance from the centre.↗ Example: A football is spherical.↗ · The Earth is almost spherical but a little flat at the poles.↗ · Bubbles are spherical because of how water pulls on itself.↗ · Marbles are small spherical glass balls.↗ · A circle is flat, but a ball is spherical.↗ · The bead was spherical with a hole through the middle.↗ · Name three spherical things in the classroom.↗

sphinx — Everyday, meaning 1: The Great Sphinx is a huge ancient stone statue in Egypt with a lion's body and a human head, near the pyramids of Giza.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A sphinx is any statue or creature in myths with a lion's body and a human (or other animal's) head.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: In Greek myths, the Sphinx was a monster who asked travellers a riddle and ate those who got it wrong.↗ Everyday, meaning 4: A sphinx is a person who is mysterious and hard to read.↗ Everyday, meaning 5: A Sphynx is a hairless breed of cat (spelled with a «y»).↗ Example: The Great Sphinx guards the pyramids at Giza.↗ · The Sphinx has a lion's body and a human head.↗ · Oedipus solved the riddle of the Sphinx.↗ · The Sphinx's nose has been missing for hundreds of years.↗ · She gave a sphinx-like smile and said nothing.↗ · A Sphynx cat has no fur and feels warm like a peach.↗ · We built a model sphinx from clay.↗ · The Sphinx was an ancient Egyptian divinity, who personified wisdom, and the fertility of nature.↗

spice — Everyday, meaning 1: A spice is a dried part of a plant, such as seeds, bark or roots, used to give food a strong flavour: pepper, cinnamon, ginger, cumin.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: Spice also means excitement or interest that makes something less boring: «variety is the spice of life».↗ Everyday, meaning 3: To spice food is to add spices to it.↗ Everyday, meaning 4: To spice something up is to make it more exciting or interesting.↗ Example: Cinnamon is my favourite spice.↗ · Mum keeps her spices in little jars on a rack.↗ · Add a pinch of spice to the soup.↗ · The ships carried spices from faraway lands.↗ · Let's spice up the party with some games.↗ · Variety is the spice of life.↗ · Gran made spiced apple cake.↗ · Some spices, like chilli, make food hot.↗ · She smells of spice and honey.↗ · and he burnt thereon incense of sweet spices; as the LORD commanded Moses.↗ (Torah EXO.40.27, JPS 1917)↗ · oil for the light, spices for the anointing oil, and for the sweet incense; (Torah EXO.25.6, JPS 1917)↗ · and oil for the light, and spices for the anointing oil, and for the sweet incense; (Torah EXO.35.8, JPS 1917)↗ · And some of the sons of the priests prepared the confection of the spices.↗ (Writings 1CH.9.30, JPS 1917)↗ · Spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices.↗ (Writings SNG.4.14, JPS 1917)↗ · Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out.↗ (Writings SNG.4.16, JPS 1917)↗