- [countable] (also formal spillage [uncountable, countable])an act of letting a liquid come or fall out of a container; the amount of liquid that comes or falls out
- Many seabirds died as a result of the oil spill.
- I wiped up the coffee spills on the table.
- [countable] a long match, or a thin piece of twisted paper, used for lighting fires, oil lamps, etc.
- [countable, usually singular] a fall, especially from a bicycle or a boat
- to take a spill
Word Originnoun sense 1 and noun sense 3 Old English spillan ‘kill, destroy, waste, shed (blood)’; of unknown origin. noun sense 2 Middle English (in the sense ‘sharp fragment of wood’). The current sense date from the early 19th cent.
Idioms
See spill in the Oxford Advanced American DictionarySee spill in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary of Academic English(the) thrills and spills
- (informal) the excitement that is involved in dangerous activities, especially sports
- Experience the thrills and spills of surfing!
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