Word of the Day

: December 30, 2017

spiel

noun SPEEL

What It Means

: a voluble line of often extravagant talk : a speech delivered especially to sell or promote something

spiel in Context

We let the time-share salesman give us his opening spiel, but when he got to the high-pressure sales tactics, we cut him short and made it clear that we were not interested.

"Instead of the usual spiel about what equipment to purchase or what software to install, I find that it is critical that people … have the right mindset when communicating with those who are on the front lines of preventing cyber attacks." — William H. Saito, Forbes, 8 Aug. 2017

Did You Know?

There's more than one spiel. Today's featured noun sense is well-known, and many of our readers may also be aware that spiel can be used as a verb for the act of talking extravagantly. But did you know that the verb can also mean "to play music"? That, in fact, is the word's original meaning—one it shares with its German root, spielen. (Spiel is also found in glockenspiel, a musical instrument similar to the xylophone.) In Scottish English, spiel is also sometimes used as a shortened form of bonspiel, a name for a match or tournament of the icy game of curling.