SPIRE

Spire

A spire is a tapering conical or pyramidal structure on the top of a building, particularly a church tower. Etymologically, the word is derived from the Old English word spir, meaning a sprout, shoot, or stalk of grass.

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spire

Noun

  1. The stalk or stem of a plant.
  2. A young shoot of a plant; a spear.
  3. A sharp or tapering point.
  4. A tapering structure built on a roof or tower, especially as one of the central architectural features of a church or cathedral roof.
    The spire of the church rose high above the town.
  5. The top, or uppermost point, of anything; the summit.
  6. A tube or fuse for communicating fire to the charge in blasting.

Noun (etymology 2)

  1. One of the sinuous foldings of a serpent or other reptile; a coil.
  2. A spiral.
  3. The part of a spiral generated in one revolution of the straight line about the pole.

Verb

  1. Of a seed, plant etc.: to sprout, to send forth the early shoots of growth; to germinate.
  2. To grow upwards rather than develop horizontally.

Verb (etymology 2)

  1. To breathe.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: spire
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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