Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A faucet. See Regional Note at andiron.
- n. A wooden faucet placed in the bunghole of a cask.
- n. The vent plug of a cask.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A small peg or plug designed to be driven into a gimlet-hole in a cask through which, when open, the contained liquor is drawn off; hence, by extension, any plug fitting into a faucet used for drawing off liquor.
Wiktionary
- n. A pin or peg used to stop the vent in a cask
- n. The plug of a faucet or cock.
- n. A faucet. (Appalachian)
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A pin or peg used to stop the vent in a cask; also, the plug of a faucet or cock.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a regulator for controlling the flow of a liquid from a reservoir
- n. a plug for a bunghole in a cask
Etymologies
- Middle English, perhaps from Old French *espigot, diminutive of Old Provençal espiga, ear of grain, from Latin spīca. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The truth about paid media: Paid media works, but only so long as the money spigot is turned on and gushing.”
The Huffington Post: Kirk Cheyfitz: Advertising's Future Is 3 Simple Words: Paid. Owned. Earned.
“The spigot is stopping Nov. 2," he says, when voters will be sending a message to Congress.”
The Washington Post: Ehrlich vs. O'Malley -- Maryland governor debate liveblog
“* If the Saudi oil spigot is shut off, by terrorism or by political revolution, the effect on the global economy, and particularly on the economy of the United States, will be devastating.”
“They’re still frothing at the mouth over 9/11 and want to kill as many brown people as possible before the spigot is shut off.”
“Instead of holding back -- working with a fragile amount of space and condensing language to make effective and subtle suggestions -- I open up the word spigot and, in doing so, the fictional world of the story.”
“Collecting rainwater from the gutter into a bucket with a spigot could be a spiffy way to get some clean water - or a fast way to gather some watered-down bird poop in a big tub.”
“Is the defense-spending "spigot" remaining open after all?”
“Although, in Mr. Gates's words, the defense spending "spigot" that opened after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks is being closed, the Pentagon is increasing its commitment to select military hardware, among them the most costly weapons program ever, the Joint Strike Fighter, as well as various ships and submarines.”
The Wall Street Journal: Gates Is Optimistic that Weapons Cuts Will Weather Opposition
“They'd already narrowed the "spigot" by half with concomitant price increases at the pump.”
“Both men knew that meant only one thing: somehow Bear had to be given access to the Fed “window,” that is, the spigot of cash that was available to the nation’s commercial banks, but not its investment banks.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘spigot’.
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wallace
Remington, Windsor, prorector, wen, aver, mottle, seltzer, tepee, lapidary, effete, sotto, presbyopia and 355 more...
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Swine
For more aporkalyptic fun, see madmouth's Everything's better with a pig in it.
For "references to the Dursleys in Wizard People, Dear Reader, Brad Neely's cosmos-shattering voiceover ...swine, pig, hog, boar, pork, pork bellies, hog cholera, swineherd, pigsty, swine flu, oink, pig in a blanket and 188 more...
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Chap stickies
Words associated with Chappism.
chap, brideshead revisited, jeeves, woosterian, rough shag, spigot, anarcho-dandyism, chumrade, chapette, wing-backed armchair, snood, boogie-woogie and 26 more...
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Get, Got, Gotten
get a move on, misbegotten, got the gimmes, don't get me started, man's gotta eat, get a life, get lost, got religion, cat got your tongue?, get together, get the lead out, got milk? and 72 more...
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wakcy's Words
apocalypse, interlude, drome, absolution, atrocity, ruse, pristine, mason, reparable, deteriorate, pyramid, hipster and 283 more...
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MiaLuthien's list ♥
gambit, prehensile, coquetry, impunity, genuflect, ensconce, clavicle, delude, beget, castigate, life caching, convoluted and 478 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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Favorite Tangible Object Words
Trimming the "Chained Bear's Favorites" list so I don't crash people's computers... like my own...
castanets, whaup, budgie, wallabies, ring-wraith, hobbit, chinchilla, guano, merganser, phalarope, phalarope, curlew and 138 more...
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katiad's Words
exquisite, obnoxious, noxious, extravaganza, whirlwind, whirling, wild, spinster, existential, chaos, zephyr, blasphemy and 310 more...
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madmelanie's Words
monkey, folderol, snark, snarky, flibbertigibbet, faith, asshat, pirouette, avuncular, exegesis, memento mori, verisimilitude and 379 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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Words of Whimsy & Grace
abecedary, addendum, ampersand, anachronism, avuncular, balderdash, barnacle, befuddle, behemoth, bejeebers, blabbermouth, blatherskite and 465 more...
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The Lies of Locke Lamora
Words and phrases from Scott Lynch's book, The Lies of Locke Lamora
constable, windfall, sternum, commensurate, disinter, grotty, thresher shark, savvy, miser, reticent, magnanimous, trowel and 301 more...
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Words of the Day
glabella, chirotony, nook-shotten, crapehanger, filemot, swirlie, egosurf, lexiphanicism, Ruritanian, stichometry, chrononaut, faldstool and 2014 more...
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End in -ot
Just what it says. Words that end in -ot.
wainscot, ascot, marmot, jot, ocelot, spot, blot, scot, lot, shot, dot, snot and 219 more...
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Words That Populate My Mind
This is a collection of words I love, old ones that I love the sound of when I repeat them for years and new ones coined in news articles on up and coming trends and technologies - most of them I k...
aroma, mojo, blithely, fringe, fray, synchronicity, doublespeak, buzzword, thoughtcrime, portmanteau, newspeak, oldspeak and 963 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for spigot.

pterodactyl See this map -- spigot is currently winning the popularity contest against spicket. Apr 10, 2008
reesetee Hmm. Me too, but I liked it. :-) Feb 21, 2007
chained_bear Growing up, I always heard this pronounced as "spicket." I hate that. Feb 21, 2007