spindrift
Sea spray blown from the tops of waves by the wind and whipped along the surface of…Sea spray (clouds of water droplets) blown from the tops of waves by the wind and whipped along the surface of the sea.
» Spindrift from the waves below was reaching the clifftop.
Der Sprühnebel der Wellen unten kam hoch bis auf die Klippen.
Meaning
2 senses(countable, uncountable)Sea spray (clouds of water droplets) blown from the tops of waves by the wind and whipped along the surface of the sea.
Gischt
spray blown up from the surface of the sea
(broadly, countable, uncountable)Clouds of sand, snow, etc., whipped along the ground by the wind.
Examples
1 sentencesSpindrift from the waves below was reaching the clifftop.
deDer Sprühnebel der Wellen unten kam hoch bis auf die Klippen.
Translations
2 languagesBy meaning 1
Origin
Borrowed from Scots spindrift; further etymology uncertain. The Oxford English DictionaryBorrowed from Scots spindrift; further etymology uncertain. The Oxford English Dictionary suggests it is a variant of spoondrift (archaic), apparently due to the pronunciation of this word in southwestern Scotland, which is derived from spoon + drift (“mass of matter driven or forced onward together in a body, etc., especially by wind or water”); spoon is a variant of spoom (“to sail briskly with the wind astern, with or without sails hoisted”). However, this is doubted by the Scottish National Dictionary because spoondrift is attested later than spindrift and it seems unlikely that the Scots spelling would have superseded the English one, and because the early use of the Scots word in the form spenedrift by James Melville (1556–1614) is unlikely to have derived from spoondrift.
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Forms
plural: spindriftsSynonyms
1 synonyms- spray blown up from the surface of the sea:spoondrift
Lessons for this word
1 lessons- A1Countable and uncountable nouns — Because it can be uncountable