spalt

Compare German Spalt (“stein”), from spalten (“to split”). (This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

• IPA^(key): /spɔːlt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔːlt

spalt (uncountable)

1. spelter.

spalt (comparative more spalt, superlative most spalt)

1. (of wood) brittle.

   Note: (US) Spalted wood is that which has been cut from a naturally cured, dead, or dying hardwood tree whose wood is normally light in color (such as pecan), and which exhibits patterns of dark stain (crazed) lines and splotches caused by microorganisms and/or fungus. Although slightly more brittle and porous than normal wood from the same species of tree, spalted wood nevertheless can be used to make decorative items and small pieces of furniture.

   • 1772, William Ellis, Husbandry, Abridged:

     a brittle, spalt wood

2. heedless; clumsy; pert; saucy.

spalt (third-person singular simple present spalts, present participle spalting, simple past and past participle spalted)

1. (ambitransitive) To break off pieces, or have them broken off, especially with an axe etc; to splinter.

   Synonym: spall

• -plast, plats, slapt, splat

• IPA^(key): /ʃpalt/

• Audio:

  (file)

spalt

1. singular imperative of spalten

spalt

1. imperative of spalte

Related to Lombardic spalt (“crack, fissure”); see modern German spalten (“to cleave”).

spalt m

1. crack, fissure

• German: Spalt, Spalte
• → Italian: spalto

• Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “spill”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Used in Swedish since 1657, same as Danish spalte, from German Spalte, based on the verb spalten (“to split”), related to Swedish spjäll, spilla, spillra

spalt c

1. a (long and narrow) gap
2. a column (of text)
3. a (recurring) section with certain contents in a paper or magazine; a column

• glugg
• kolumn

• gomspalt (“cleft palate”)

• spalta
• spaltbredd
• spaltmeter
• spaltutrymme

• springa

• spalt in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• spalt in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• spalt in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)
• spalt in Elof Hellquist, Svensk etymologisk ordbok (1st ed., 1922)

• plast, plats