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spike

[spahyk]

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Spike Definition Dictionary.com Find Definitions For Any Word.Get Your Free Dictionary.com Toolbar.

noun

a naillike fastener, 3 to 12 inches (7.6 to 30.5 cm) long and proportionately thicker than a common nail, for fastening together heavy timbers or railroad track.

something resembling such a nail; a stiff, sharp-pointed piece or part: to set spikes in the top of a cement wall.

a sharp-pointed piece of metal set with the point outward, as on a weapon.

an abrupt increase or rise: a chart showing a spike of unusual activity in the stock market; a sudden spike of electrical current.

a rectangular or naillike metal projection on the heel and sole of a shoe for improving traction, as of a baseball player or a runner.

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spikes, a pair of shoes having such projections.

the unbranched antler of a young deer.

Botany. a flower stalk.

a pointed portion of a continuous curve or graph, usually rising above the adjacent portion: a spike in the value of the voltage.

10.

Volleyball. a hard smash, hit close to the net, almost straight down into the opponent's court.

11.

Slang. a hypodermic needle.

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verb (used with object)

12.

to fasten or secure with a spike or spikes.

13.

to provide or set with a spike or spikes.

14.

to pierce with or impale on a spike.

15.

to set or stud with something suggesting spikes.

16.

to injure (another player or a competitor) with the spikes of one's shoe, as in baseball.

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17.

Volleyball. to hit (a ball in the air) with a powerful, overarm motion from a position close to the net so as to cause it to travel almost straight down into the court of the opponents.

18.

Football. to slam (the ball) to the ground in the end zone, after scoring a touchdown.

19.

to render (a muzzle-loading gun) useless by driving a spike into the touchhole.

20.

to make ineffective; frustrate or thwart: to spike a rumor; to spike someone's chances for promotion.

21.

Informal.

to add alcoholic liquor to (a drink).

to add (a chemical, poison, or other substance) to: The cocoa was spiked with cyanide.

22.

Journalism Slang. to refuse (a story) by or as if by placing on a spindle.

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Spike is always a great word to know.

So is alternation of generations. Does it mean:

variation in an organism's life cycle of dissimilar reproductive forms

form of a diploid plant in the alternation of generations that produces asexual spores

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verb (used without object)

23.

to rise or increase sharply (often followed by up): Interest rates spiked up last week.

Idiom

24.

spike someone's guns. gun¹ (def. 15).

Origin:
1300–50; Middle English spik(e) (noun) < Old Norse spīkr nail; akin to Old Norse spīk, Middle Low German spīker nail

Related forms

spike·like, adjective

Example Sentences

Months later, there was a spike in online activity and discussions.

How to rebuild confidence in food markets after this summer's spike in wheat prices.

The biofuels boom is causing a spike in food prices worldwide, hitting developing countries particularly hard, experts say.

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Months later, there was a spike in online activity and discussions.

How to rebuild confidence in food markets after this summer's spike in wheat prices.

The biofuels boom is causing a spike in food prices worldwide, hitting developing countries particularly hard, experts say.

The result is that each spike will get a kink that moves out to infinity.

Tiny flowers are tightly clustered on a tall, narrow spike.

Channels sometimes open up when there is no wave, creating an entirely false spike.

Many presidents said they viewed the spike in coaches' compensation as evidence of a system that had spun out of control.

Yet it is the differences between today's food-price spike and earlier ones that are striking, not the similarities.

After a temperature spike in the mid-Cretaceous, the climate began to cool, and the tenor changed.

Mine injuries rise, there is also a spike in car accidents for both changes.

Steep warm spices in cider, then spike the drink with a generous dose of dark rum.

The spike is not matched by an increase in actual file sharing.

Because those dogs, you know they cause a spike in fertility.

The surge in private-debt levels before the crisis, and the spike in public-debt burdens after it as governments tried to.

He also maintained a family group during these years, singing traditional songs to the accompaniment of the xalam spike lute.

Researchers worry that a sharp spike in oil prices would follow such a peak unless counteracted by falling demand.

Love to make the space feel cooler but without causing their water bill to spike significantly.

Ordinarily, when prices spike skyward, the world's non-cartel spigots open wide.

Of course the market will spike up because they are, in essence, making a short squeeze.

Nonetheless, whether driven by demand or supply, a large enough spike in the price of oil can do great damage.

By the mid-1970s, their population had dropped to half due to a spike in agricultural expansion.

Understanding what causes an unexpected dip or spike helps us improve our models.

Among the short list of side effects: melting glaciers, rising seas, scorching summer heat waves and a spike in severe storms.

The spike in flat sales has propelled shares in property.

But grain farmers have found their reliance on fossil fuels can turn costly when oil prices spike.

The premise is that we've gone off the deep end for neurotransmitters and spike trains.

But the latest spike in fuel prices has pedal-started a moped resurgence.

Energy-watchers, meanwhile, have been fretting about the spike in energy consumption caused by the.

It is not at all unusal that a drop in a forcing function causes a spike in the system output.

Any device that depends on an electric motor will have a large spike in current when it is turned.

The spike in uncertainty alone was enough to make businessmen defer decisions about investment and hiring.

Furthermore, men's prolactin levels spike and testosterone levels drop in the weeks before their partner gives birth.

The companies say the spike in cover prices are due to retailers' demanding that they pay less from the publishers for books.

Luring foreign investors has been made trickier by a spike in violence.

Aircraft storage yards report a big spike in the number of planes.

The oil-price spike has heightened sensitivity over hedging costs.

Even drastic body-weight disparities in youth programs could be causing the spike in the number of reported cases.

But the repo men anticipate a spike in calls once that time is up.

Not every unexpected spike in the water flow is the result of.

He says the census-driven spike in the former should produce an echo of a spike in the latter.

The spike in demand for diesel has drained supplies and resulted in long queues at filling stations.

The last thing the world needs right now is disruption of one of its busiest shipping lanes and a spike in insurance premiums.

Then, too, a spike in the price of oil coincided with a fear that natural limits to supply were close.

That, and the recent spike in oil and gas prices, has prompted many governments to look again at nuclear power.

Rather, the spike was a reminder of what is important to them.

Last year's spike in fuel prices had little effect on core consumer prices, but things are different now.

COLLAPSE

Dictionary.com Unabridged

noun

an ear, as of wheat or other grain.

Botany. an inflorescence in which the flowers are without a stalk, or apparently so, along an elongated, unbranched axis.

Origin:
1350–1400; Middle English; probably special use of spike¹, influenced by Latin spīca ear of grain

Link To spike

Collins

World English Dictionary

spike¹ (spaɪk)

—n
1.	a sharp point
2.	any sharp-pointed object, esp one made of metal
3.	a long metal nail
4.	physics
	a. a transient variation in voltage or current in an electric circuit
	b. a graphical recording of this, such as one of the peaks on an electroencephalogram
5.	(plural) shoes with metal projections on the sole and heel for greater traction, as used by athletes
6.	the straight unbranched antler of a young deer
7.	slang (Brit) another word for dosshouse

—vb
8.	to secure or supply with or as with spikes
9.	to render ineffective or block the intentions of; thwart
10.	to impale on a spike
11.	to add alcohol to (a drink)
12.	journalism to reject (a news story)
13.	volleyball to hit (a ball) sharply downwards with an overarm motion from the front of one's own court into the opposing court
14.	(formerly) to render (a cannon) ineffective by blocking its vent with a spike
15.	spike someone's guns to thwart someone's purpose

[C13 spyk; related to Old English spīcing nail, Old Norse spīk splinter, Middle Low German spīker spike, Norwegian spīk spoke², Latin spīca sharp point; see spike²]

spike² (spaɪk)

—n
1.	an inflorescence consisting of a raceme of sessile flowers, as in the gladiolus and sedges
2.	an ear of wheat, barley, or any other grass that has sessile spikelets

[C14: from Latin spīca ear of corn]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

spike

"large nail," 1345, probably from O.N. spik "splinter" (related to O.E. spicing "large nail"), from P.Gmc. *spikaz (cf. M.Du. spicher, Du. spijker "nail," O.E. spaca, O.H.G. speihha "spoke"), from PIE base *spei- "sharp point" (cf. L. spica "ear of corn," spina "thorn, prickle, backbone," pinna "pin;"

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Gk. spilas "rock, cliff;" Lett. spile "wooden fork;" Lith. speigliai "thorns," spitna "tongue of a buckle," O.E. spitu "spit"). But based on gender difficulties in the Gmc. words, OED casts doubt on this whole derivation and says the Eng. word may be a borrowing of L. spica (see spike (n.2)), from the same root. Slang meaning "needle" is from 1923. Meaning "pointed stud in athletic shoes" is from 1832. Electrical sense of "pulse of short duration" is from 1935.

spike

"ear of grain," 1393, from L. spica "ear of grain," related to spina "thorn" (see spike (n.1)).

spike

1624, "to fasten with spikes," see spike (n.1). Meaning "To rise in a spike" is from 1958. Military sense (1687) means "to disable guns by driving a big nail into the touch-hole." Fig. use of this sense is from 1823. Meaning "to lace (a drink) with liquor" is from 1889. Journalism

sense of "to kill a story before publication" (1908) is from the metal spindle in which old-time editors filed hard copy of stories after they were set in type, or especially when rejected for publication.

COLLAPSE

American Heritage

Medical Dictionary

spike (spīk)
n.
A brief electrical event of 3 to 25 milliseconds that gives the appearance in the electroencephalogram of a rising and falling vertical line.

American Heritage

Science Dictionary

spike (spīk) Pronunciation Key
An elongated indeterminate inflorescence in which the flowers are attached directly to a common stem, rather than borne on individual stalks arising from the stem. The gladiolus produces spikes. The distinctive spikes of grasses such as wheat or barley are known as spikelets. See illustration at inflorescence.

Slang Dictionary

spike definition

n.
a hypodermic needle; a hypodermic syringe and needle; a medicine dropper and a needle. (Drugs.) : The addict caught some strange disease from a dirty spike.
tv.
to add ether or alcohol to beer, originally by injecting it through the cork with a hypodermic needle; to add alcohol to a nonalcoholic drink. (From prohibition times. See also spiked.) : He spiked the beer with ether, which is a dangerous thing to do.
tv.
to puncture an idea. : I explained the plan, but the boss spiked it immediately.

Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
Cite This Source

FOLDOC

Computing Dictionary

spike definition

jargon
To defeat a selection mechanism by introducing a (sometimes temporary) device that forces a specific result. The word is used in several industries; telephone engineers refer to spiking a relay by inserting a pin to hold the relay in either the closed or open state, and railroaders refer to spiking a track switch so that it cannot be moved. In programming environments it normally refers to a temporary change, usually for testing purposes (as opposed to a permanent change, which would be called hard-coded).
(1999-10-18)

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