spire1
noun spʌɪəˈspaɪ(ə)r
1A tapering conical or pyramidal structure on the top of a building, typically a church tower.
（尤指教堂塔楼的）尖顶- Conical spires on top support pinnacles that enabled the towers to obtain the coveted height record.
- New light has been shed on the cathedral spire and tower which, at 404 ft is the tallest masonry structure in Britain, by tree ring dating.
- It runs along something of a ridge so we could see for miles to villages betrayed by church towers and spires.
- The slender minaret of a mosque and the spires of churches rise in sharp relief over the flat roofs of the homes.
- A palace had spires and towers; this was one solid structure, a gigantic rectangle imposed on the landscape.
- Ornate buildings, gracious parks, spires and steeples which jab like fingers into the sky - all these vie with each other in the downtown area.
- One of the best shots in the film is of a church spire which pans up to reveal the minaret of the mosque just behind.
- The architecture attested to its ancient heritage, with massive castle-like structures adorned with spires and turrets on nearly every building.
- The tall buildings stretched high into the night sky, the top spires of the churches and court houses surrounded in a wreath of smoke from the fires that burned in pot bellied stoves far below.
- Much of the repair work centres on the spire of the church where water has been leaking into tower and rotting the foundations.
- Gothic cathedrals are characterised by large towers and spires.
- Towers, turrets, soaring church spires - the graceful architecture in Moscow and St. Petersburg is filmed in minute detail.
- I was a massive stone structure with many great spires and turrets.
- St Peter's church is prominently situated in the town of Drogheda, Co Louth and has a distinctive clock tower and spire.
- Former as well as current places of worship with towers, spires, minarets or domes are also helpful navigational aids.
- He enjoyed a reputation for building tall elegant masonry structures such as church towers and spires.
- We could see a proliferation of white towers, minaret answering church spire.
- It's a striking building with turrets and spires.
- Most of the infrastructure is completed, including the framework for the spire on the abbey tower.
- Initially in Norman style, it developed into a great Gothic cathedral with a towering spire, the largest church in England and third largest in Europe.
steeple, belfryflècheHinduism shikara- 1.1 The continuation of a tree trunk above the point where branching begins, especially in a tree of a tapering form.（尤指尖顶形树木的）抽条（指树干向上的延伸部分，树枝在此展开）
- After clipping another bolt, I looked out to see nothing but blue sky with a few light, wispy clouds hovering way above the spires of Queen Creek Canyon.
- The spires of the background forest continue this use of repetition.
- How lovely and strange the gangly spires of trees against a thickening sky as you drive from the library humming off-key?
- 1.2 A long tapering object.长而一端逐渐尖细的物体spires of delphiniums
长而尖的翠雀草。
- It looked like an abstract statue made from brown stone, roughly cylindrical, with small spires jutting out from the top, seemingly placed at random.
- These herbaceous biennials produce tall spires clustered with tiny flowers, each of which is surrounded by its own emerald bell.
- The Towers themselves appear to have been built from east to west, with each successive spire rising taller and showing greater economy of form and construction methodology.
- Three marines, held their ground, and fired plasma round after plasma round at the spires above them.
- By traipsing through them, we can map out the route to the golden spires and around the crocodile pits of this emerging sub-genre.
- The great tree is an ancient spire of dead wood, made of lignin and cellulose by the ancestors of the thin layer of living cells that go to constitute its bark.
- To assure a robust flower spire, feed plants in late winter or early spring with a balanced dry fertilizer or a top dressing of well-rotted manure or compost.
- For the piece de résistance, set all within a naturalized sea of camassia bulbs with their tall greenish spires and soft blue florets that bloom for weeks on end in late spring.
- The trees were skeletal spires of hardened white ash, and the ground was bare of greenery, instead coated with an oily black film.
- Connected to the tips of each spire was a crescent moon.
- Jagged spires of rock rise high above the boiling surf, peaking ultimately in tree-covered summits.
- The rest of the crater forms a rim of jagged peaks and spires, which give it a dinosaur skeleton-like profile.
- Now there were sharp ravines and barren gray slopes and narrow red spires looming above a clay basin that had, for 600 millennia, been eroded by rivers and wind.
- I prefer the restrained vista-framing, avenue-forming, gentle shapes of cylinders, spires and cones.
- Is it simply the love of adventure that beckons them towards these pristine ice clad peaks and spires, at times crossing the barren icy wastelands to reach the zenith of tranquility and peace the mountains offer?
- They include a white or orchre-painted cone surmounted by a tapering spire and standing on a square pedestal.
- If these plants have spikes and spires, they also add vertical movement, drama and an airy lightness to the garden.
- Seres started to forge a chant and the flower was concealed within a spire of red light.
- Our guides lead us in yoga as dawn light dances on the redrock spires that form the backdrop of our camp.
- The spires behind the figure collapsed, as two spherical domes rose to the surface.
Derivatives
spired
- We all scrambled past the opened, tall, spired gate.
- To the West a great wall towered over the spired building, acting as a shield to the temple itself and to the city.
- He crept up on a sentry, given away by the faint flicker of firelight on spired helmet.
- The heroic duo took off in the direction of eight spired rocks to the west.
- A stupa was originally a burial mound enshrining relics of a holy person, but over the centuries this has developed into tall, spired monuments.
spiry
- Once upon the spiry pinnacles which crown the rim, a scene of wild power broke upon us.
- The spectacle presented by these century-old trees standing close beside a spiry wall of ice, with their branches almost touching it, was most novel and striking.
adjective
adjective ˈspʌɪriˈspaɪ(ə)ri
Origin
Old English spīr 'tall slender stem of a plant'; related to German Spier 'tip of a blade of grass'.
Old English spīr was a ‘tall slender stem of a plant’, related to German Spier ‘tip of a blade of grass’. The word came to be used in the late 16th century for a slender structure such as a spire of rock or a church spire. Dreaming spires comes from Matthew Arnold, writing of Oxford in Thyrsis (1865) ‘And that sweet city with her dreaming spires…Lovely all times she lies, lovely to-night’. Spire has no connection with spiral (mid 16th century) which comes from Latin spira ‘coil’.
Rhymes
acquire, admire, afire, applier, aspire, attire, ayah, backfire, barbwire, bemire, briar, buyer, byre, choir, conspire, crier, cryer, defier, denier, desire, dire, drier, dryer, dyer, enquire, entire, esquire, expire, fire, flyer, friar, fryer, Gaia, gyre, hellfire, hire, hiya, ire, Isaiah, jambalaya, Jeremiah, Josiah, Kintyre, latria, liar, lyre, Maia, Maya, Mayer, messiah, mire, misfire, Nehemiah, Obadiah, papaya, pariah, peripeteia, perspire, playa, Praia, prior, pyre, quire, replier, scryer, shire, shyer, sire, skyer, Sophia, squire, supplier, Surabaya, suspire, tier, tire, transpire, trier, tumble-dryer, tyre, Uriah, via, wire, Zechariah, Zedekiah, Zephaniah
spire2
noun spʌɪəˈspaɪ(ə)r
Zoology The upper tapering part of the spiral shell of a gastropod mollusc, comprising all but the whorl containing the body.
〔动〕（腹足纲软体动物螺壳的）螺旋部- The morphology of the upper spire of the Jamaican species is not known.
- The animal crawled with the spire of the shell facing backwards, unlike pre-torted Bellerophontids.
- Inspection of the literature reveals that a number of fossil species of cerithiform gastropods have a high-pyramidal spire like that of Alamirifica.
- When viewed from above, the shells appear to represent small piles of pebbles, with the smallest ones on the upper spire and the largest ones on the body whorl.
- However, the upper spire whorls of P. calafia are shorter than the corresponding ones on P. acuminata.
Origin
Mid 16th century (in the general sense 'a spiral'): from French, or via Latin from Greek speira 'a coil'.
spire1
nounˈspaɪ(ə)rˈspī(ə)r
1A tapering conical or pyramidal structure on the top of a building, typically a church tower.
（尤指教堂塔楼的）尖顶- Former as well as current places of worship with towers, spires, minarets or domes are also helpful navigational aids.
- We could see a proliferation of white towers, minaret answering church spire.
- He enjoyed a reputation for building tall elegant masonry structures such as church towers and spires.
- Most of the infrastructure is completed, including the framework for the spire on the abbey tower.
- The architecture attested to its ancient heritage, with massive castle-like structures adorned with spires and turrets on nearly every building.
- Towers, turrets, soaring church spires - the graceful architecture in Moscow and St. Petersburg is filmed in minute detail.
- The tall buildings stretched high into the night sky, the top spires of the churches and court houses surrounded in a wreath of smoke from the fires that burned in pot bellied stoves far below.
- One of the best shots in the film is of a church spire which pans up to reveal the minaret of the mosque just behind.
- St Peter's church is prominently situated in the town of Drogheda, Co Louth and has a distinctive clock tower and spire.
- Ornate buildings, gracious parks, spires and steeples which jab like fingers into the sky - all these vie with each other in the downtown area.
- Initially in Norman style, it developed into a great Gothic cathedral with a towering spire, the largest church in England and third largest in Europe.
- It's a striking building with turrets and spires.
- New light has been shed on the cathedral spire and tower which, at 404 ft is the tallest masonry structure in Britain, by tree ring dating.
- A palace had spires and towers; this was one solid structure, a gigantic rectangle imposed on the landscape.
- It runs along something of a ridge so we could see for miles to villages betrayed by church towers and spires.
- I was a massive stone structure with many great spires and turrets.
- Conical spires on top support pinnacles that enabled the towers to obtain the coveted height record.
- Much of the repair work centres on the spire of the church where water has been leaking into tower and rotting the foundations.
- Gothic cathedrals are characterised by large towers and spires.
- The slender minaret of a mosque and the spires of churches rise in sharp relief over the flat roofs of the homes.
steeple, belfry- 1.1 The continuation of a tree trunk above the point where branching begins, especially in a tree of a tapering form.（尤指尖顶形树木的）抽条（指树干向上的延伸部分，树枝在此展开）
- The spires of the background forest continue this use of repetition.
- How lovely and strange the gangly spires of trees against a thickening sky as you drive from the library humming off-key?
- After clipping another bolt, I looked out to see nothing but blue sky with a few light, wispy clouds hovering way above the spires of Queen Creek Canyon.
- 1.2 A long tapering object.长而一端逐渐尖细的物体spires of delphiniums
长而尖的翠雀草。
- Connected to the tips of each spire was a crescent moon.
- Three marines, held their ground, and fired plasma round after plasma round at the spires above them.
- These herbaceous biennials produce tall spires clustered with tiny flowers, each of which is surrounded by its own emerald bell.
- Jagged spires of rock rise high above the boiling surf, peaking ultimately in tree-covered summits.
- If these plants have spikes and spires, they also add vertical movement, drama and an airy lightness to the garden.
- The great tree is an ancient spire of dead wood, made of lignin and cellulose by the ancestors of the thin layer of living cells that go to constitute its bark.
- The Towers themselves appear to have been built from east to west, with each successive spire rising taller and showing greater economy of form and construction methodology.
- I prefer the restrained vista-framing, avenue-forming, gentle shapes of cylinders, spires and cones.
- The rest of the crater forms a rim of jagged peaks and spires, which give it a dinosaur skeleton-like profile.
- The trees were skeletal spires of hardened white ash, and the ground was bare of greenery, instead coated with an oily black film.
- It looked like an abstract statue made from brown stone, roughly cylindrical, with small spires jutting out from the top, seemingly placed at random.
- For the piece de résistance, set all within a naturalized sea of camassia bulbs with their tall greenish spires and soft blue florets that bloom for weeks on end in late spring.
- Seres started to forge a chant and the flower was concealed within a spire of red light.
- By traipsing through them, we can map out the route to the golden spires and around the crocodile pits of this emerging sub-genre.
- To assure a robust flower spire, feed plants in late winter or early spring with a balanced dry fertilizer or a top dressing of well-rotted manure or compost.
- Now there were sharp ravines and barren gray slopes and narrow red spires looming above a clay basin that had, for 600 millennia, been eroded by rivers and wind.
- They include a white or orchre-painted cone surmounted by a tapering spire and standing on a square pedestal.
- The spires behind the figure collapsed, as two spherical domes rose to the surface.
- Is it simply the love of adventure that beckons them towards these pristine ice clad peaks and spires, at times crossing the barren icy wastelands to reach the zenith of tranquility and peace the mountains offer?
- Our guides lead us in yoga as dawn light dances on the redrock spires that form the backdrop of our camp.
Origin
Old English spīr ‘tall slender stem of a plant’; related to German Spier ‘tip of a blade of grass’.
spire2
nounˈspaɪ(ə)rˈspī(ə)r
Zoology The upper tapering part of the spiral shell of a gastropod mollusk, comprising all but the whorl containing the body.
〔动〕（腹足纲软体动物螺壳的）螺旋部- When viewed from above, the shells appear to represent small piles of pebbles, with the smallest ones on the upper spire and the largest ones on the body whorl.
- The morphology of the upper spire of the Jamaican species is not known.
- However, the upper spire whorls of P. calafia are shorter than the corresponding ones on P. acuminata.
- Inspection of the literature reveals that a number of fossil species of cerithiform gastropods have a high-pyramidal spire like that of Alamirifica.
- The animal crawled with the spire of the shell facing backwards, unlike pre-torted Bellerophontids.
Origin
Mid 16th century (in the general sense ‘a spiral’): from French, or via Latin from Greek speira ‘a coil’.