spiel

See also:Spiel

English

Etymology 1

BorrowedfromGermanSpiel(“game, performance”)and/orYiddishשפּיל(shpil),both fromMiddle High Germanspil,fromOld High Germanspil,fromProto-West Germanic*spil. Cognate withOld Englishspilian(“to revel, play”).Seespeel.

Alternative forms

• shpeal,schpeal,shpiel,schpiel,schpeel

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key):/ʃpiːl/,/spiːl/

• Audio(Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes:-iːl

Noun

spiel(countableanduncountable,pluralspiels)

1. Alengthyandextravagantspeechorargumentusuallyintendedtopersuade.
   • 1910,Irving Berlin(lyrics and music), “Dear Mayme, I Love You”:

     I'd love to be there with a real prettyspiel/ But three little words can explain how I feel

   • 1939May,Theodore Roethke,“The Auction”, inPoetry Magazine‎^[1]:

     Thespielran on; the sale was brief and brisk; / The bargains fell to bidders, one by one. / Hope flushed my cheekbones with a scarlet disk.

   • 2024September 11,Richard Brody,““Winner” Takes Political Comedy Seriously”, inThe New Yorker‎^[2]:

     An Air Force recruiter (Gino Anania) visits her school and delivers aspielabout anti-terrorist successes in Iraq; she contradicts him with the plain facts of the 2001 attacks.

2. (music)An early form ofrap music.
   • 1991,Ira A. Robbins,The Trouser Press Record Guide,Howell Book House,→ISBN:

     Watt gets his turn on the mic too, delivering an amusingly disjointed rap (following Minutemen tradition, he calls it aspiel) on "Me & You, Remembering."

   • 2007,Jocelyne Cesari,Encyclopedia of Islam in the United States,Greenwood Pub Group,→ISBN:

     A typical Last Poets song consisted of a "spiel,"an early form of rap where song verses were spoken over conga drum percussions or jazz music.

   • 2007,Mickey Hess,Icons of Hip Hop: An Encyclopedia of the Movement, Music, and Culture,ABC-CLIO,→ISBN,page17:

     Drawing on the smooth and steady rap style of disco DJs, the proto-rapspielof the Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron, various other American and African American oral traditions (including, as mentioned above, radio disc jockey practice)[…]

Translations

A lengthy and extravagant speech or argument usually intended to persuade

• Danish:svadac
• Dutch:breedsprakerig verhaal,donderpreek(nl)
• Finnish:hehkutus(fi)
• French:boniment(fr)m
• German:langes Gereden,Schwafeleif,Geschwafel(de)n
• Italian:tiritera(it)f,sproloquio(it)m
• Polish:gadka(pl)f
• Portuguese:conversa fiada(pt)f
• Romanian:perorație(ro)f
• Russian:красноречиваяисторияf,призывнаяречьf
• Spanish:perorata(es)f,parrafadaf(colloquial)
• Swedish:svada(sv)c

Verb

spiel(third-person singular simple presentspiels,present participlespieling,simple past and past participlespieled)

1. (intransitive)Totalkat length.
   • 1952,Ralph Ellison,Invisible Man,Penguin Books (2014), page433:

     For a second our eyes met and he gave me a contemptuous smile, then hespieledagain.

   • 1966March,Thomas Pynchon,chapter 5, inThe Crying of Lot 49,New York, N.Y.:Bantam Books,published November 1976,→ISBN,page103:

     […]Oedipa spotted among searchlights and staring crowds a KCUF mobile unit, with her husband Mucho inside it,spielinginto a microphone.

2. (intransitive)To give a sales pitch; to promote by speaking.

Derived terms

• Purim spiel

Related terms

• spieler

Etymology 2

From theScotsspiel(“game, play; curling match”)fromMiddle DutchorMiddle Low Germanspel.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key):/spiːl/

• Audio(Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes:-iːl

Noun

spiel(pluralspiels)

1. A game ofcurling.
   • 1890,John Kerr,History of curling... and fifty years of the Royal Caledonian curling club:

     The portion of ice set apart for a curlingspielwas called the lead, rank, or rink (by which last name it is still described), and as it was then shorter than it is now — its ordinary length being 30 yards

   • 1972,William M'Dowall, A. E. Truckell,History of the burgh of Dumfries:

     On the Dock and Greensands the classical discus, or quoit, has in season due its modicum of disciples, (b) When the Nith is frozen over its surface becomes the scene of many a curlingspiel

   • 1989,Morris Kenneth Mott, John Allardyce,Curling Capital,Univ. of Manitoba Press,→ISBN,page13:

     A few organizational difficulties marred thisspieland the next, but thereafter most of the wrinkles were ironed out.

Derived terms

• carspiel
• cashspiel

Related terms

• bonspiel

Anagrams

• Elpis,Lipes,Peils,Piels,Piles,Siple,piles,plies,pliés,slipe,spile

German

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

Verb

spiel

1. singularimperativeofspielen