German

Noun

Spiel n ‎(genitive Spiels or Spieles, plural Spiele, diminutive Spielchen n)

1. game, play

Declension

Hyponyms

• Gesellschaftsspiel
• Videospiel

Derived terms

• Farbspiel
• Federballspiel
• Fesselspiel n
• Fußballspiel
• Glücksspiel n
• Handballspiel
• Handyspiel n
• Heimspiel
• Kammerspiel n
• Kampfspiel n
• Lustspiel n
• Schattenspiel
• Sexspiel
• Spielbrett
• Spieldauer
• spielen
• Spielende
• Spielfigur
• Spielhalle
• Spielmann
• Spielmannschaft
• Spielraum
• Spieltruppe f
• Spieluhr f
• Spielverlauf
• verspielt

English

Alternative forms

• shpeal, schpeal
• shpiel, schpiel
• schpeel

Noun

spiel ‎(plural spiels)

1. A lengthy and extravagant speech or argument usually intended to persuade.
   • 1910, Irving Berlin, Dear Mayme, I Love You

     I'd love to be there with a real pretty spiel

     But three little words can explain how I feel

   • 20th century, Theodore Roethke, The Auction

     The spiel ran on; the sale was brief and brisk;

     The bargains fell to bidders, one by one.

     Hope flushed my cheekbones with a scarlet disk.

     Old neighbors nudged each other at the fun.

2. A fast excuse or sales pitch.
3. An early form of rap music.
   • 1991, Ira A. Robbins, The Trouser Press Record Guide, Howell Book House (ISBN 9780020363613)

     Watt gets his turn on the mic too, delivering an amusingly disjointed rap (following Minutemen tradition, he calls it a spiel) on "Me & You, Remembering."

   • 2007, Jocelyne Cesari, Encyclopedia of Islam in the United States, Greenwood Pub Group (ISBN 9780313336256)

     A typical Last Poets song consisted of a "spiel," an early form of rap where song verses were spoken over conga drum percussions or jazz music.

   • 2007, Mickey Hess, Icons of Hip Hop: An Encyclopedia of the Movement, Music, and Culture, ABC-CLIO (ISBN 9780313339028), page 17

     Drawing on the smooth and steady rap style of disco DJs, the proto-rap spiel of the Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron, various other American and African American oral traditions (including, as mentioned above, radio disc jockey practice) [...]

Translations

Verb

spiel ‎(third-person singular simple present spiels, present participle spieling, simple past and past participle spieled)

1. To talk at length.

Derived terms

• spieler

Etymology 2

From the Scots word for game, competition, or (sporting) match from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German spel

Noun

spiel ‎(plural spiels)

1. A game of curling.
   • 1890, John Kerr, History of curling ... and fifty years of the Royal Caledonian curling club

     The portion of ice set apart for a curling spiel was called the lead, rank, or rink (by which last name it is still described), and as it was then shorter than it is now — its ordinary length being 30 yards

   • 1972, William M'Dowall, A. E. Truckell, History of the burgh of Dumfries

     On the Dock and Greensands the classical discus, or quoit, has in season due its modicum of disciples, (b) When the Nith is frozen over its surface becomes the scene of many a curling spiel

   • 1989, Morris Kenneth Mott, John Allardyce, Curling Capital, Univ. of Manitoba Press (ISBN 9780887553172), page 13

     A few organizational difficulties marred this spiel and the next, but thereafter most of the wrinkles were ironed out.

Derived terms

• bonspiel

Anagrams

• piles
• plies
• spile