The AI-powered English dictionary
plural spalls
A splinter, fragment or chip, especially of stone. quotations examples
My father knew Bert Le Feuvre, the foreman of Griffith's yard, and there was a little heap of spawls waiting ready every night in summer after school for me to crack.
1974, GB Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, New York, published 2007, page 13
third-person singular simple present spalls, present participle spalling, simple past and past participle spalled
(transitive, intransitive) To break into fragments or small pieces. quotations examples
Cobbed Ore is the ſpalled which is broke out of the ſolid large ſtones with ſledges
1778, William Pryce, Mineralogia Cornubiensis: A Treatise on Minerals, Mines, and Mining […]
Drones will give an idea of the worst bits, but if it's lightly spalled then I don't know if they will necessarily see that.
2021 May 5, Paul Stephen, “Restoring the glory of Ribblehead”, in RAIL, number 930, page 39
(transitive) To reduce, as irregular blocks of stone, to an approximately level surface by hammering. examples
(obsolete, rare) The shoulder. quotations
Their mightie ſtrokes their haberieons diſmayld, / And naked made each others manly ſpalles; […]
1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, stanza 30, page 265