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Noun
Badlands National Park, South Dakota The 244,000-acre Badlands National Park offers a mix of towering rock spires and buttes surrounding verdant prairie.—Graham Averill, Outside Online, 13 June 2025 Freezing fog trundling in from Ocean Beach deposited ice crystals on every branch and spire, frosting the deco towers, the green pagodas and granite lions of Chinatown.—Literary Hub, 11 June 2025
Verb
On April 15, a fire broke out in the attic and spread across the roof and spire before firefighters were alerted.—Marla Jo Fisher, Oc Register, 21 May 2025 Both crosses were removed from the cathedral’s steeple and spire in 1998 for building renovations.—Killian Baarlaer, The Courier-Journal, 24 Dec. 2024 See All Example Sentences for spire
Word History
Etymology
Noun (1)
Middle English, from Old English spīr; akin to Middle Dutch spier blade of grass
Noun (2)
Latin spira coil, from Greek speira; perhaps akin to Greek sparton rope, esparto
First Known Use
Noun (1)
before the 12th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1
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