English
spike
see also: Spike
Pronunciation Noun

spike (plural spikes)

  1. A sort of very large nail.
  2. A piece of pointed metal etc. set with points upward or outward.
    The trap was lined with spikes.
  3. Anything resembling such a nail in shape.
    • some time after his death in 1719???, Joseph Addison, Dialogues Upon the Usefulness of Ancient Medals
      He wears on his head the corona radiata […] ; the spikes that shoot out represent the rays of the sun.
  4. An ear of corn or grain.
  5. (botany) A kind of inflorescence in which sessile flowers are arranged on an unbranched elongated axis.
  6. (informal, mostly, in the plural) A running shoe with spikes in the sole to provide grip.
  7. A sharp peak in a graph.
  8. A surge in power or in the price of a commodity etc.
  9. The long, narrow part of a high-heeled shoe that elevates the heel.
  10. A long nail for storing papers by skewering them; (by extension) the metaphorical place where rejected newspaper articles are sent.
    Synonyms: spindle
    • 1974, Books and Bookmen
      It was all true, it appeared. He sat down and wrote it, the editor read it and said: ' We don't use stories like this in this newspaper.' So the story ended up on the spike, reinforcing the principle that wife-swapping, unlike justice, must not be seen to be done.
    • 2005, David Bouchier, Writer at Work: Reflections on the Art and Business of Writing, iUniverse ISBN 9781462065332
      Later I was entrusted with writing the letters to the editor, because nobody else ever wrote to our paper. The editor, Eric Lewis, had a slash and burn style of editing that left its mark on me forever. Most of my stories ended up on the spike.
    • 2013, Margalit Fox, Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code and the Uncovering of a Lost Civilisation, Profile Books ISBN 9781847659705
      Assuming that word of the death reached the Times's newsroom at all, it would have taken little more than one bleary-eyed night editor who had heard neither of Ventris nor of linear B for the obituary to have been consigned to the spike.
  11. (volleyball) An attack from, usually, above the height of the net performed with the intent to send the ball straight to the floor of the opponent or off the hands of the opposing block.
  12. (zoology) An adolescent male deer.
  13. (slang, historical) The casual ward of a workhouse.
    • 1933: George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London, p. 139.
      "Dere's tay spikes, and cocoa spikes, and skilly spikes."
  14. Spike lavender.
    oil of spike
  15. (music, lutherie) Synonym of endpin#English|endpin.
Synonyms Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations
  • Italian: picco
  • Russian: скачо́к
  • Spanish: pico
Translations Translations Verb

spike (spikes, present participle spiking; past and past participle spiked)

  1. To fasten with spikes, or long, large nails.
    to spike down planks
  2. To set or furnish with spikes.
  3. To embed nails into (a tree) so that any attempt to cut it down will damage equipment or injure people.
  4. To fix on a spike.
    • 1950, Cyril M. Kornbluth, “The Little Black Bag”, Astounding Science Fiction, Volume 45, Issue 4:
      He spiked the story on the “dead” hook and answered his interphone.
    • 1996, Christine Quigley, The Corpse: A History, McFarland, page 144:
      Better known as Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler), he spiked his victims on stakes arranged in geometric patterns and accorded each a high or low spear, according to his or her rank.
  5. (figurative, journalism) To discard; to decide not to publish or make public.
    • 1981, Chris Greyvenstein, The Fighters (page 145):
      Nicolaas, or Nick, as the family called him, wanted to turn professional but an ear injury, sustained during the war, spiked his plans.
    • 2002, October 14, Jonathan Sale, “Edward VIII news blackout”, The Guardian:
      Instead, the "Beaver" declared he would spike the story about Wallis Simpson and make sure his fellow media moguls sat on it too.
    • 2017 October 11, Lloyd Grove, “How NBC ‘Killed’ Ronan Farrow’s Weinstein Exposé”, Daily Beast:
      With two such wildly contradictory versions of why and how NBC News spiked Farrow’s Weinstein story, it’s difficult to determine what objectively occurred.
  6. To increase sharply.
    Traffic accidents spiked in December when there was ice on the roads.
    • 2017, Jennifer S. Holland, For These Monkeys, It’s a Fight for Survival., National Geographic (March 2017)
      But the bigger threat is that people in Sulawesi have been eating macaque meat for centuries. Today it goes for about two dollars a pound (an adult macaque weighs 18 to 23 pounds), and demand spikes at holidays.
  7. To covertly put alcohol or another intoxicating substance into a drink.
    She spiked my lemonade with vodka!
  8. To add a small amount of one substance to another.
    The water sample to be tested has been spiked with arsenic, antimony, mercury, and lead in quantities commonly found in industrial effluents.
  9. (volleyball) To attack from, usually, above the height of the net with the intent to send the ball straight to the floor of the opponent or off the hands of the opposing block.
  10. (military) To render (a gun) unusable by driving a metal spike into its touch hole.
    • 1834, Frederick Marryat, Peter Simple:
      He jumped down, wrenched the hammer from the armourer’s hand, and seizing a nail from the bag, in a few moments he had spiked the gun.
    • 1990, Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game, Folio Society 2010, p. 235-6:
      Small skirmishes also took place, and the Afghans managed to seize a pair of mule-guns and force the British to spike and abandon two other precious guns.
  11. (football slang) To slam the football to the ground, usually in celebration of scoring a touchdown, or to stop expiring time on the game clock after snapping the ball as to save time for the losing team to attempt to score the tying or winning points.
Synonyms Translations Translations
Spike
Proper noun
  1. A male nickname.
    • 1995, Donna E. Norton, Through the eyes of a child: an introduction to children's literature (page 418)
      This book contains mostly humorous animal poems by poets such as Spike Milligan, Theodore Roethke, and Rudyard Kipling.
    • 2013 Zadie Smith, N-W, Hamish Hamilton, ISBN 978-0-241-14414-5, page 238:
      He was meant to be called Benjamin, but he arrived with a little tuft of hair on top of his head, like a spike, and they called him Spike for three days, and then recalled a romantic, childless afternoon, years earlier, spent watching a matinee revival of She's Gotta Have It.


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