spake
Quiet; tame.
Adjective
- Quiet; tame.
- Ready; prompt.
Origin
From Middle English spake, spak, from Old Norse spakr (“wise, gentle, quiet”), from Proto-Germanic *spakaz (“wise, clever”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)peǵ- (“to understand; intelligent, attentive”). Cognate with Swedish spak (“manageable”), Danish spag (“quiet, gentle, timid, tame”).
Forms
Derived
Noun Scotland, alt of
- Alternative form of spoke (of a wheel).
Origin
Alternative form.
Forms
Noun business, mining
- A type of wagon on rails used for carrying workers in and out of a colliery.
Origin
Uncertain. Possibly a variant of spoke, which has a variety of extended senses in English dialects and in Scots (including a tree branch or cutting, a windmill's arm, a birdcage's perch, and a bar for carrying a coffin), though none closely matching this.
Forms
Verb
- simple past of speak
- And God ſpake vnto Noah, ſaying, / Goe foorth of the Arke, thou, and thy wife, and thy ſonnes, and thy ſonnes wiues with thee:[…] - 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC,...
- He answered me with pleasure and surprise; / And there was, while he spake, a fire about his eyes. - 1815 [1802], William Wordsworth, Resolution and Independence:
- But at last his heart changed,—and rising one morning with the rosy dawn, he went before the sun, and spake thus unto it: Thou great star! What would be thy happiness if thou hadst not those for whom thou shinest! -...
Origin
From Middle English spak, from Old English spæc, first and third person singular past tense of specan (“to speak”). More at speak.