spile

plural spiles

1. CumbriadialectalobsoleteLancashireA splinter.
2. A spigot or plug used to stop the hole in a barrel or cask.

   So I felt my way down the passage back to the vault, and recked not of the darkness, nor of Blackbeard and his crew, if only I could lay my lips to liquor. Thus I groped about the barrels till near the top of the stack my hand struck on the spile of a keg, and drawing it, I got my mouth to the hold.

   [1898], J[ohn] Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, London; Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934, →OCLC

3. USA spout inserted in a maple (or other tree) to draw off sap.

   Now, chamfering one end of the elderberry tube slightly to fit, I push it into the hole and wait. After a few seconds sap will begin to drip from the end of the tube, a tangible flow of life and vitality. […] Beneath the tube, properly called a spile, I place my cup to catch the drips.

   2023, Ray Mears, chapter 2, in British Woodland, Ebury Spotlight, →ISBN

present singular third person spiles · participle present spiling · participle past spiled · past spiled

1. To plug (a hole) with a spile.
2. To draw off (a liquid) using a spile.
3. To provide (a barrel, tree etc.) with a spile.

plural spiles

1. A pile; a post or girder.

   […]we'd settled that I’d pick up some spiles from Greg Fitch first thing on Monday morning and get something done about that fence.

   1975, Catherine Aird, Slight Mourning

   2 more examples

   What do you see?—Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep.

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 1”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC

   The bottom of the river is of hard, sparkling white sand, into which spiles are easily driven; and the building and keeping up of such a wharf is a trifling trouble...

   1873, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Palmetto-Leaves

present singular third person spiles · participle present spiling · participle past spiled · past spiled

1. transitiveTo support by means of spiles.
2. transitiveTo drive piles into.

present singular third person spiles · participle present spiling · participle past spiled · past spiled

1. USambitransitivedialectalspoil.