Other forms: spitting, spat, spits
To spit is to force liquid out of your mouth. A mouthful of water at the dentist, a bad sip of milk into the sink, a footballer spitting on the grass.
The noun spit is the saliva itself, and spittle is the fussier word for it. Spit carries anger too: he spits the words out, she spits with fury — you can spit an insult with no liquid involved at all. In British weather talk, it is spitting means the rain has just started, a few drops at a time. Two other spits are worth knowing: a roasting spit is the long rod meat turns on over a fire, and a spit of land is a narrow finger of sand reaching out into the sea. The past tense is spat in Britain and often spit in America, and spit it out means say the thing you are struggling to say.
1verbspitTo force saliva or another liquid out of your mouth.~2%
“The baby spits out anything green.”
2nounliquidThe liquid in your mouth; saliva.~2%
“There was a bit of spit at the corner of his mouth.”
3verbangerTo say something with anger, forcing the words out.~2%
“He was spitting insults before the door had even shut.”
4verbrainTo rain very lightly, in British English.~2%
“It is only spitting, so leave the big coat.”
5nounthinA long thin rod that meat is turned on over a fire.~17%
“A whole lamb was turning on a spit at the far end of the yard.”
6nounnarrowA narrow strip of land or sand reaching out into water.~75%
“The lighthouse stands at the end of a long sandy spit.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 11 sentences found in the wild and placed 11 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
The spit in this family tree is the rod, not the mouth. Old English spitu was the rod that meat is cooked on, from Proto-Germanic *spitō, a rod, skewer or spike, and behind that Proto-Indo-European *speyd-, sharp, a sharp stick. That sharpness is why a narrow point of land pushing into the sea is a spit too. Danish spid and Swedish spett are still the same object.
Proto-Indo-European
*speyd-
Old English
spitu — rod on which meat is cooked; spit
Middle English
spit
English, today
spit
Built from
The noun is from Middle English spit, spite, spete, spette, spyte, spytte (“rod on which meat is cooked; rod used as a torture instrument; short spear; point of a spear; spine in the fin of a fish; pointed object; dagger symbol; land projecting into the sea”), from Old English spitu (“rod on which meat is cooked; spit”), from Proto-Germanic spitō (“rod; skewer; spike”), spituz (“rod on which meat is cooked; stick”), from Proto-Indo-European speyd-, spey- (“sharp; sharp stick”). The English word is cognate with Dutch spit, Low German Spitt (“pike, spear; spike; skewer; spit”), Danish spid, Swedish spett (“skewer; spit; type of crowbar”). The verb is derived from the noun, or from Middle English spiten (“to put on a spit; to impale”), from spit, spite: see above. The English verb is cognate with Middle Dutch speten, spitten (modern Dutch speten), Middle Low German speten (Low German spitten, modern German spießen (“to skewer, to spear”), spissen now dialectal) and Danish spidde.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA