spillover
/ˈspɪlˌəʉ̯.və/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.51 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The spread of infectious disease between different species of animal and particularly to humans.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "The spillover from the dam due to the heavy rains will run down this channel and harmlessly dump into that river, we hope."
- "The spillover from this war will be many little massacres of civilians by civilians."
- "And Mr. Pike, for practically all of his sixty-nine years, has stood his watch-and-watch, with many a spill-over of watches into watches."
- "The pool table is a sort of spill-over from Upstairs, the suspiciously-named Ramrod Room, which operates almost as a separate bar."
- "This could mean European countries need to import more food from countries like Brazil, which would incentivize deforestation and add up to more environmental hidden costs there. Such cross-border spillover is one reason Bobo isn’t a big fan of the true-cost accounting approach the FAO used to come up with its hidden cost figures."
- "We’re not establishing the kind of safe practices that will minimize the opportunity for spillover. If we better understood where these viruses are circulating and understood that ecology, we would have the potential to disrupt and minimize the risk of spillover."
Etymology
From spill + over.
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈspɪlˌəʉ̯.və/
- British English: /ˈspɪlˌəʊ̯.və/