spire

Meanings

1. The stalk or stem of a plant.
2. A young shoot of a plant; a spear.
3. Any of various tall grasses, rushes, or sedges, such as the marram, the reed canary-grass, etc.
4. A sharp or tapering point.
5. A tapering structure built on a roof or tower, especially as one of the central architectural features of a church or cathedral roof.
6. The top, or uppermost point, of anything; the summit.
7. A tube or fuse for communicating fire to the charge in blasting.

1. to sprout, to send forth the early shoots of growth; to germinate.
2. To grow upwards rather than develop horizontally.
3. To furnish with a spire.

1. To breathe.

1. One of the sinuous foldings of a serpent or other reptile; a coil.
2. A spiral.
3. The part of a spiral generated in one revolution of the straight line about the pole.

Etymology

From Middle English spire, spyre, spier, spir, from Old English spīr, from Proto-Germanic *spīrō, *spīrǭ (“peak; point; tip; stalk”). Cognate with Dutch spier, German Low German Spier, German Spier, Spiere, Danish spir, Norwegian spir and spire, Swedish spira, Icelandic spíra.