spoilsport (spoilsport)

[ spoilt. A past participle of spoil . spokel (spok), n. [Also dial. speke , spake ; spoke , spake (pl. spokes , spoken , spaken ), spāca (pl. spacan ) = D. speek = MLG. spēke , LG. speke = OHG. speicha , speihha , MHG. G. speiche , a spoke; prob. not related to OHG. spahhā, shaving, splinter, G. dial. spache , a spoke, = MD. spaecke , a rod, D. spaak , a lever, roller, but perhaps related to spike : see spikel . Cf. Icel. spoki , a piece of wood, spækja , a thin board.] 1. One of the bars, rods, or rungs which are inserted in the hub or nave of a wheel, and serve to support the rim or felly; a radius of a wheel. See cut under felly . Lat brynge a cart wheel into this halle; But looke that it have his spokes alle; Twelve spokes hath a cart wheel comunly. Chaucer, Summoner's Tale, 1. 554. Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel, And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven. Shak ., Hamlet, ii. 2. 517. 2. One of the rounds or rungs of a ladder.3. One of a number of pins or handles jutting from the periphery of the steering-wheel of a ve el.-4. A bar of wood or metal so placed in or applied to the wheel of a vehicle as to prevent its turning, as when going down a hill. See second phrase below. You would seem to be master! you would have your spoke in my cart! B. Jonson, Poetaster, ii. 1. I'll put a spoke among your wheels. Fletcher, Mad Lover, iii. 5. Spoke-sizing machine, a machine for planing tenons of spokes to uniform size and shape. It has cutters with an adjustable angle-gage for beveling the edges of the tenons. - To put a spoke in one's wheel, to put an impediment in one's way; check or thwart one's purpose or effort. It seems to me it would be a poor sort of religion to put a spoke in his wheel by refusing to say you don't believe such harm of him as you've got no good reason to believe. George Eliot , Middle march, xiii. spokel (spōk), v. t.; pret. and pp. spoked, ppr. spoking. [ spoke2 (spōk). Preterit and obsolete past participle of speak.