spindrift
/ˈspɪnˌdɹɪft/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.69 in modern English
15
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
2
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "There was no snow as yet up here at Dare; but wild tempests shaking the house to its foundations; and brief gleams of stormy sunlight lighting up the grey spindrift as it was whirled shorewards from the breaking seas; […]"
- "The ocean waves are broken up by wind, ultimately producing the storm-wrack and spin-drift of the tempest-tossed sea."
- "[T]ogether they watched the bobbing black specks as they crawled out of the estuary into the grey spindrift which marked the harbour mouth."
- "The tide rocks were spouting spray and the wind drove the spindrift in their faces, and they scrambled awkwardly over and round the rock masses tumbled from the cliff face on the flat ledge at sea-level."
Etymology
Borrowed 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Dictionary because spoondrift is attested later than spindrift and it seems unlikely that the Scots spelling would have superseded the English one, and because the early use of the Scots word in the form spenedrift by James Melville (1556–1614) is unlikely to have derived from spoondrift. The word was popularized in English from the late 19th century by its use in the novels of the Scottish-born author William Black (1841–1898): see, for example, the 1878 quotation.
Word Breakdown
- Root: spindrift
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈspɪnˌdɹɪft/
- British English: /ˈspɪndɹɪft/