Spell

//spɛl// name, noun, verb, slang

name, noun, verb, slang ·Very common ·Middle school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Words or a formula supposed to have magical powers.

    "He cast a spell to cure warts."

  2. 2
    A shift (of work); (rare) a set of workers responsible for a specific turn of labour.
  3. 3
    A splinter, usually of wood; a spelk. Northern-England

    "To swadle a bowe much about wyth bandes, verye seldome dothe anye good, excepte it be to kepe downe a spel in the backe."

  4. 4
    a verbal formula believed to have magical force wordnet
  5. 5
    A magical effect or influence induced by an incantation or formula.

    "under a spell"

Show 10 more definitions
  1. 6
    A definite period (of work or other activity). informal

    "A chap named Eleazir Kendrick and I had chummed in together the summer afore and built a fish-weir and shanty at Setuckit Point, down Orham way. For a spell we done pretty well. Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand."

  2. 7
    The wooden bat in the game of trap ball, or knurr and spell.
  3. 8
    a psychological state induced by (or as if induced by) a magical incantation wordnet
  4. 9
    Speech, discourse. obsolete
  5. 10
    An indefinite period of time (usually with a qualifier); by extension, a relatively short distance. colloquial

    "Even Mrs. Harker seems to lose sight of her trouble for whole spells. [...] When he had spoken, Mina's long spell of silence made me look at her."

  6. 11
    a period of indeterminate length (usually short) marked by some action or condition wordnet
  7. 12
    A period of rest; time off.
  8. 13
    a time period for working (after which you will be relieved by someone else) wordnet
  9. 14
    A period of illness, or sudden interval of bad spirits, disease etc. US, colloquial
  10. 15
    An uninterrupted series of alternate overs bowled by a single bowler.
Verb
  1. 1
    To put under the influence of a spell; to affect by a spell; to bewitch; to fascinate; to charm.

    "Vnchaine your spirits now with spelling Charmes,"

  2. 2
    To write or say the letters that form a word or part of a word. intransitive, sometimes, transitive

    "I find it difficult to spell because I'm dyslexic."

  3. 3
    To work in place of (someone). transitive

    "to spell the helmsman"

  4. 4
    take turns working wordnet
  5. 5
    To read (something) as though letter by letter; to peruse slowly or with effort. obsolete, transitive

    ""He'll do," said Bildad, eyeing me, and then went on spelling away at his book in a mumbling tone quite audible."

Show 14 more definitions
  1. 6
    To rest (someone or something), to give someone or something a rest or break. transitive

    "They spelled the horses and rested in the shade of some trees near a brook."

  2. 7
    indicate or signify wordnet
  3. 8
    Of letters: to compose (a word). transitive

    "The letters “a”, “n” and “d” spell “and”."

  4. 9
    To rest from work for a time. colloquial, intransitive
  5. 10
    orally recite the letters of or give the spelling of wordnet
  6. 11
    To clarify; to explain in detail. figuratively, transitive

    "Please spell it out for me."

  7. 12
    place under a spell wordnet
  8. 13
    To indicate that (some event) will occur; typically followed by a single-word noun. transitive

    "This spells trouble."

  9. 14
    write or name the letters that comprise the conventionally accepted form of (a word or part of a word) wordnet
  10. 15
    To constitute; to measure.

    "the Saxon heptarchy, when seven kings put together did spell but one in effect"

  11. 16
    relieve (someone) from work by taking a turn wordnet
  12. 17
    To speak, to declaim. obsolete

    "O who can tell / The hidden power of herbes, and might of Magicke spell?"

  13. 18
    To tell; to relate; to teach. obsolete

    "1770, Thomas Warton, “Ode on the Approach of Summer” in A Collection of Poems in Four Volumes, London: G. Pearch, Volume 1, p. 278, As thro’ the caverns dim I wind, Might I that legend find, By fairies spelt in mystic rhymes,"

  14. 19
    To notate or indicate a pitch, interval, or chord using a particular enharmonic spelling.

    "The note D♭ is spelled differently from C♯, even though they sound equivalent."

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A surname.

Synonyms

All synonyms
enchantmentgorelievewhilecantripaccess

Example

More examples

"We have had a long spell of cold weather."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English spell, spel, from Old English spell (“news, story”), from Proto-Germanic *spellą (“speech, account, tale”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)pel- (“to tell”) or from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- (“to speak, to sound”) with the s-mobile prefix. Cognate with dialectal German Spill, Icelandic spjall (“discussion, talk”), spjalla (“to discuss, to talk”), guðspjall (“gospel”) and Albanian fjalë (“word”).

Etymology 2

From Middle English spellen, from Anglo-Norman espeler, espeleir, Old French espeller, espeler (compare Modern French épeler), from Frankish *spelōn, merged with native Old English spellian (“to tell, speak”), both eventually from Proto-Germanic *spellōną (“to speak”). Related with etymology 1. The sense “indicate a future event” probably in part a backformation from forespell (literally “to tell in advance”).

Etymology 3

From Middle English spelen, from Old English spelian (“to represent, take or stand in the place of another, act as a representative of another”), akin to Middle English spale (“a rest or break”), Old English spala (“representative, substitute”).

Etymology 4

From Middle English spel (“a thin piece of wood”), from Old Norse [Term?].

Etymology 5

From the German surname, perhaps related to Speller.

Related phrases

bind spellbinding spellbreathing spellcold spelldry spellhot spellhow do you spell this wordit doesn't matter what they say about you as long as they spell your name rightmagic spellmoney spellnorthern spellset a spell

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.