spur

Definitions

General English

  • noun

    something

    which

    stimulates an action
  • verb to

    urge

    someone

    on

Agriculture

  • noun a ridge of land that descends towards a valley floor from higher land above
  • noun a tubular projection from a

    flower

    sepal

    or

    petal

    often containing

    nectar

  • noun a short leafy branch of a tree with a cluster of flowers or fruits

Construction

  • An appendage to a supporting member such as a

    buttress

    ,

    shore

    , or prop.
  • A decorative stone base that makes the transition from a

    round

    column to a square or polygonal

    plinth

    .
  • A carpenter's tool with a sharp point used for cutting veneer.
  • A rock ridge left projecting from a side

    wall

    aftera

    blast

    .
  • A short length of railroad track; usually parallel to a

    main

    track and used for loading, unloading, or storage.

Medical

Military

  • noun a ridge protruding from a

    hill

    or mountain into lower-lying ground

Publishing

  • noun a little line running sideways from the rounded bowl of a letter ‘g’ or up from the loop of an ‘f’

Origin & History of “spur”

Spur goes back ultimately to Indo-European *sper- ‘hit

with

the foot, kick’ (source

also

of

English

spurn (OE),

which

originally meant literally ‘hit with the foot, trip over’).

from

it was descended the prehistoric Germanic

noun

*spuron, which produced German sporn ‘spur’, Dutch spoor ‘track’ (source of English spoor (19th c.)), and Swedish sporre ‘spur’ as well as English spur.
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