Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. See spindrift.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Nautical, a showery sprinkling of sea-water or fine spray swept from the tops of the waves by the violence of the wind in a tempest, and driven along before it, covering the surface of the sea; scud. Sometimes called spindrift.
Wiktionary
- n. Alternative form of spindrift.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Spray blown from the tops of waves during a gale at sea; also, snow driven in the wind at sea; -- written also
spindrift .
WordNet 3.0
- n. spray blown up from the surface of the sea
Etymologies
- Obsolete spoon, to run before the wind + drift. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“As the gale increased, the tops of the waves were shorn off by the fierce blasts, clouding the whole atmosphere with frozen spray, or what the sailors call "spoondrift," rendering it impossible to see any object a few rods distant.”
“A curtain of spoondrift hung above that awful reef and almost shut from the view of those ashore the open sea and what swam on it.”
“There was no rain -- just a wind which tore across the waste of waters within view of her station, scattering their crests in foam and spoondrift, and rolling them in huger and still huger breakers on the strand.”
“She was all of a shiver forward, the spoondrift thick on her flanks,”
“The sun shone bright in the clear sky above and the wind howled as it lashed the combing sea, driving the spoondrift like mist through the air and covering the vast ocean in a sea of foam -- a scene grand and magnificent to behold!”
“The oil slick helped only a little; every few moments a wave with spoondrift flying from it would smash across the deck, volleying tons of water between rails, with a sound like thunder.”
“And the schooner in a world of flying spray, white scud, and driving spoondrift, her cordage humming, her forefoot churning, the flag at her peak straining stiff in the gale, came up into the narrow passage of the”
“The spoondrift began to fly so that you could not see the moon, and the wind was enough to choke you if you faced it.”
The Chequers Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in a Loafer's Diary
“The rain, too, beat down furiously, and the spoondrift in thick showers flew off the summits of the seas, shrouding the ship in a dense mist, through which no objects, had any been near, could have been discerned.”
“Scarcely had he spoken, than a terrific roar was heard, and down came the gale upon us with unbridled fury, driving before it vast masses of spoondrift, and tearing up the water into huge waves, which every instant rose higher and higher.”
Salt Water The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘spoondrift’.
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Waves and Waveforms
wave, brainwave, soliton, traveling wave, tidal wave, transverse wave, capillary wave, cats' paws, alpha wave, light wave, microwave, acoustic wave and 314 more...
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Words for ice and snow
Environmental Ice and Snow
(excluding all the food ice)ice, icicle, frazil, frasil, sleet, slush, snow, flurry, snowfall, freeze, flash-freeze, quick-freeze and 618 more...
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5-0
Hecko, words! I’m so happy I’ve found you. I want to keep you all and never want to lose you again. I hope you like it here.
amscray, thistledown, tine, tinsel, pungent, snarl, wail, lanky, viscid, dawdle, luminous, stow and 2719 more...
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A Serving of Random Palavery
This is an eclectic and somewhat random list of words that catch and hold my attention. They may be archaic or disused, dialectal, jargon words from my fields of academic speciality (linguistics, ...
scraffle, infelicitous, misprize, defrock, caitiff, gimcrack, innerve, abjure, cyberchondriac, indurate, hexagynous, pistils and 146 more...
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There's a word for that? The Mother N...
glin, virga, freshet, petrichor, psithurism, apricity, plenilunary, parhelion, ombrophobous, nemophily, lychnidiate, mizzle and 31 more...
Tweets
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hernesheir (n). Spray blown from the tops of the waves during a gale at sea; snow driven by the wind at sea.
cf. spindrift Dec 30, 2008