Definition of spill

• n. - A bit of wood split off; a splinter.
• n. - A slender piece of anything.
• n. - A peg or pin for plugging a hole, as in a cask; a spile.
• n. - A metallic rod or pin.
• n. - A small roll of paper, or slip of wood, used as a lamplighter, etc.
• n. - One of the thick laths or poles driven horizontally ahead of the main timbering in advancing a level in loose ground.
• n. - A little sum of money.
• v. t. - To cover or decorate with slender pieces of wood, metal, ivory, etc.; to inlay.
• v. t. - To destroy; to kill; to put an end to.
• v. t. - To mar; to injure; to deface; hence, to destroy by misuse; to waste.
• v. t. - To suffer to fall or run out of a vessel; to lose, or suffer to be scattered; -- applied to fluids and to substances whose particles are small and loose; as, to spill water from a pail; to spill quicksilver from a vessel; to spill powder from a paper; to spill sand or flour.
• v. t. - To cause to flow out and be lost or wasted; to shed, or suffer to be shed, as in battle or in manslaughter; as, a man spills another's blood, or his own blood.
• v. t. - To relieve a sail from the pressure of the wind, so that it can be more easily reefed or furled, or to lessen the strain.
• v. i. - To be destroyed, ruined, or wasted; to come to ruin; to perish; to waste.
• v. i. - To be shed; to run over; to fall out, and be lost or wasted.