▪ I. spiller, n.1
(ˈspɪlə(r))
[f. spill v. + -er1.]
One who sheds or spills; esp. a shedder of blood.
| 1530 Palsgr. 266/2 Schedar, a spyller, respandevr. 1592 W. Wyrley Armorie 137 Blouds wilfull spiller seld doth mercie finde. 1611 Cotgr., Respandeur, a shedder, a spiller. 1647 Hexham i. s.v. Blood, A spiller of Bloud, een bloed-storter. 1755 Johnson, Shedder, a spiller; one who sheds. 1775– in Ash and later Dicts. 1899 Westm. Gaz. 9 Feb. 2/1 A mighty hunter, a spiller of life-blood. |
▪ II. spiller, n.2 Obs. exc. arch.
[Alteration of speller3.]
A branchlet on a deer's horn.
| 1590 Cokaine Treat. Hunting D j, Some [bucks]..are plaine palmed without any aduauncers, with long spillers out behinde. 1660 Howell Parly of Beasts 62 Such silly coxcombs..deserve to wear such branch'd horns, such spilters [sic] and trochings on their heads, as that goodly Stagg bears. 1727 Bailey (vol. II), Spillers, the small Branches shooting out from the flat Parts of a Buck's Horn at the Top. 1827 Griffith tr. Cuvier IV. 85 Additional advancers and spillers, or snags on the anterior or posterior parts of the palm. 1864 Reader 23 Jan. 112/3 The spillers into which the palm divides were directed exteriorly, as in the reindeer and the fallow-deer. |
▪ III. spiller, n.3 Chiefly Cornish dial., Ir., and Amer.
(ˈspɪlə(r))
Also 9 spillard (spilliard).
[Of obscure origin.]
1. A long fishing-line provided with a number of hooks; a trawl-line.
| 1602 Carew Cornwall 31 b, In Harbor Eeles are taken mostly by Spillers made of a Cord..to which diuers lesser and shorter are tyed at a little distance, and to each of these a hooke is fastened with a bayt. Ibid., This Spiller they sincke in the Sea. 1836 1st Rep. Irish Fisheries 151 The line and spillards are the modes of fishing chiefly practised. 1851 Voy. Mauritius iv. 160 A line some hundred yards in length, from which depend shorter lines, like an Irish ‘spiller’. 1875 Zoologist 2nd Ser. X. 4500 A specimen of the torpedo..caught on spillers (hook and line)..near Lamorna [in Cornwall]. |
| attrib. 1836 1st Rep. Irish Fisheries 151 The long line, hand line, and spillard fishing grounds. 1900 C. Lee Cynthia 81 A group of men..baiting spiller-hooks with cuttle. |
2. ‘In the mackerel-fishery, a seine inserted into a larger seine to take out the fish.’ Also attrib.
| 1884 Bull. U.S. Nat. Museum No. 27. 998 Mackerel pocket or spiller... The pocket was introduced into the mackerel-seine fishery in 1878 for holding the surplus catch which would otherwise spoil before being cleaned and salted. a 1891 in Nova Scotian use (Cent. Dict.). 1891 Pall Mall G. 10 Sept. 4/1 Supplementing the spring and autumn mackerel fishery by line and spiller seine and trammel with ordinary trawlings. |
Hence spiller v. intr., to fish with spillers.
| 1836 1st Rep. Irish Fisheries 151 Long line fishing, which is a kind of spillarding, is generally practised in hookers. |
▪ IV. spiller, n.4
(ˈspɪlə(r))
[f. spill n.1 + -er1.]
= spill n.1 2 a.
| 1936 M. Mitchell Gone with Wind 71 Pork took a long spiller from the mantelpiece, lit it from the lamp flame and went into the hall. |