spare

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“
Alvin Police Chief Mike Merkel said people should check their vehicle's tires and make sure the spare is aired up, check engine fluids and make sure their vehicle is running reliably before heading out.

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Definitions (52)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (18)

  1. transitive verb To refrain from treating harshly; treat mercifully or leniently.
  2. transitive verb To refrain from harming or destroying.
  3. transitive verb To save or relieve from experiencing or doing (something): spared herself the trouble of going.
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Examples (50)

  • It is likely that many of the phones in a given community are of similar design and a spare could be appropriated for a cell phone charger.
  • In what she called her spare time she was engaged in the endless task of repairing and extending her forlorn little shanties. —  Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary
  • She could either change the tire herself—which would take a minimum of half an hour and God knew if the spare was any good—or she could call roadside assistance. —  Lisa Jackson - Shiver
  • But the chapters in which Kit and Falin struggle to bring his poetry from one world and language into another are among the most beautiful Crowley (or anyone else) has written -- spare, elegiacal, erotically charged, heartbreaking. —  F ;SF; - vol 102 issue 06 - June 2002
  • Also remember to fill your spare, because they often leak quickly and you don't want to be stranded with a flat tire and then find your spare is flat too. —  Original Signal - Transmitting Digg
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This word has been looked up 115 times.

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

extra ·  thin ·  slender ·  neat ·  wooden ·  shiny ·  clean

Used in the same contextWord Family

spare:   spares ·  sparing ·  spared
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (5)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English sparen, from Old English sparian.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (4)

  1. from Middle English spar (rare), from Anglo-Saxon spær, = Old High German spar = Icelandic sparr, spare, sparing; also in comp. or deriv. Anglo-Saxon spær-hende, spær-hynde, later sparhende = Old High German sparhenti, sparing; Anglo-Saxon sper-līc, sparing, = German spärlich, frugal; German sparsam = Swedish sparsam = Danish sparsom, sparing; prob. akin to L. parcus, sparing, parcere, spare (see parcity, parsimony); Greek σπαρνός, scattered, rare, from σπείρειν, scatter, sow (see spore, sperm).
  2. from Middle English sparen, sparien, from Anglo-Saxon sparian = OFries. spara = Dutch sparen = Middle Low German sparen = Old High German sparōn, Middle High German sparn, German sparen = Icelandic Swedish spara = Danish spare, spare (cf. Latin parcere (√ spar), spare); from the adjective
  3. from spare, v.
  4. Early modern English also sparre, spayere, spayre; from Middle English speyre, speyr; origin obscure.
 

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/spɛr/
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