ˈspindrift Orig. Sc.
Also 7 spene-, 8 speendrift.
[var. of spoondrift, app. due to local Sc. pronunciations of spoon; the form speen- is north-eastern, spin- south-western.]
a. Continuous driving of spray; spoondrift. Also fig. (example attrib.).
Common in English writers from c 1880, probably at first under the influence of W. Black's novels.
| 1600 Melvill Diary (1842) 169 A how wa and spenedrift. 1755 R. Forbes Ajax' Speech 31 Twa-three swankies riding at the hand-gallop, garring the dubs flee about them like speen-drift. 1823 Galt Entail II. i. 9 Like the blast that brushes the waves of the ocean into spindrift. 1866 Macleod in Gd. Words Feb. 109 It..began to blow with furious gusts which angrily tore the small waves of the inland sea into spindrift. 1879 Black Macleod of D. xxix, Brief gleams of stormy sunlight lighting up the grey spindrift. 1883 G. C. Davies Norfolk Broads xxvii, The spindrift hid them every minute, and it appeared impossible they could live in such a boil. |
| fig. 1946 Dylan Thomas Deaths & Entrances 36 Not for the proud man apart From the raging moon I write On these spindrift pages. |
b. transf. Driving snow, sand, etc. Also
attrib.| 1961 Webster, Spindrift,..sand, dust, or snow driven before the wind like sea spray. 1971 C. Bonington Annapurna South Face xii. 147 At Camp V, the spindrift avalanches swished down all night, filling the platform, burying the tent. Ibid., Cataracts of spindrift kept pouring over the cliffs above. 1972 D. Haston In High Places vii. 90 A spindrift avalanche had come right down the chute, filling up the tent sack and covering everything... This wasn't the first time we'd been buried in spindrift. |
c. Comb., as
spindrift-laden,
spindrift-streaming adjs.| 1971 D. Haston in C. Bonington Annapurna South Face xvii. 214 Once again it was cold with snapping *spindrift-laden wind. |
| 1916 Blunden Harbingers 7 Or green and *spindrift-streaming shelf of stone. |