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Origin and history of spill

spill(v.)

Middle English spillen, from Old English spillan "destroy; destroy the life of, mutilate, kill," especially in a brutal way, also in late Old English "to waste;" a variant of spildan "destroy," from Proto-Germanic *spilthjan (source also of Old High German spildan "to spill," Old Saxon spildian "destroy, kill," Old Norse spilla "to destroy," Danish spilde "lose, spill, waste," Middle Dutch spillen "to waste, spend").

This is reconstructed to be from a probable PIE root *spel- (1) "to split, break off" (source also of Middle Dutch spalden, Old High German spaltan "to split;" Greek aspalon "skin, hide," spolas "flayed skin;" Latin spolium "skin, hide;" Lithuanian spaliai "shives of flax;" Old Church Slavonic rasplatiti "to cleave, split;" Middle Low German spalden, Old High German spaltan "to split;" Sanskrit sphatayati "splits").

The original sense in English faded after c. 1600. The transitive sense of "let (liquid) fall or run out" developed mid-14c.; the meaning "flow out of a container onto the ground" is from early 15c. This evolution out of the "kill" sense might be from use of the word in reference to shedding blood (attested by late 13c.).

The general intransitive sense of "run out and become wasted" is from 1650s. Also, of a river, etc., "to run or flow over the brim," 1650s. Spill the beans is recorded by 1910 in a sense of "spoil the situation;" 1919 as "reveal a secret." To cry for spilt milk (usually with negative) is attested from 1738. Related: Spilled; spilt; spilling.

spill(n.)

1845, colloquial, "a throw or fall from a horse," from spill (v.). The meaning "the spilling of a liquid; amount of spilled stuff" is from 1848.

also from 1845

Entries linking to spill

spald(v.)

c. 1400, spalden, transitive, "to splinter, chip, break apart" (spalding-knife, for splitting fish, is attested from mid-14c.), of uncertain origin, perhaps from Middle Dutch spalden, with cognates in Middle Low German spalden, Old High German spaltan, German spalten "to split" (see spill (v.)).

It survived in Scottish and Northern English. The later form of the English verb is spall (1758), back-formed from, or altered by influence of, the noun. Related: Spalled; spaller; spalling.

spelt(n.)

type of grain, Old English spelt "spelt, corn," perhaps an early borrowing from Late Latin spelta "spelt" (noted as a foreign word), which is perhaps from a Germanic *spilt-, from PIE *speld-, extended form of root *spel- (1) "to split, to break off" (probably in reference to the splitting of its husks in threshing); see spill (v.).

The word has had little currency in English, and its history is discontinuous. It is widespread in Romanic languages (Italian spelta, Spanish espelta, Old French spelte, Modern French épeautre) also in Germanic (Middle Dutch spelte, Old High German spelta, German Spelt).