speal-bone Sc. and north.
[For dial. speal-bane, var. spule-bane: see spule.]
The shoulder-blade, esp. as used in a method of divination.
Pennant is the chief source of later instances.
| 1771 Pennant Tour Scot. 1769, 154 There is another sort of divination, called Sleinanachd, or reading the speal-bone, or the blade-bone of a shoulder of mutton well scraped. 1802 Sibbald Chron. S.P. Gloss. s.v. Spald, ‘Reading the speal or spule-bane,’ antiently a common mode of divination. 1871 Tylor Prim. Cult. I. 113 A proper English term for it is ‘reading the speal-bone’. |