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Spell out   /spɛl aʊt/   Listen
Spell out

verb
1.
Make explicit; specify in detail.
2.
Spell fully and without abbreviating.
3.
Orally recite the letters of or give the spelling of.  Synonym: spell.  "We had to spell out our names for the police officer"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Spell out" Quotes from Famous Books



... kind in Wide Bend. He got corroboration from other businessmen present. Then, as he summarized the missing articles, heads began to nod. Faces got red and lists were clenched. Jerry got to his feet again. "Point three, I don't need to spell out. Much more of this and carloads of men with guns will be heading for the ridge. There'll be the kind of trouble we don't want on ...
— The Invaders • Benjamin Ferris

... the very top, her doll, her very own, with arms outstretched, as if appealing to be taken down and hugged. She knew it, knew the mission-school that had seen her first and only real Christmas, knew the gentle face of her teacher, and the writing on the wall she had taught her to spell out: "In His name." His name, who, she had said, was all little children's friend. Was He also her dolly's friend, and would He know ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... find that my ambition to have an education was to be realized. In my early days at the meat market I used to slip out on the sidewalk and try to spell out the words on the daily bulletin blackboards, such as "Spare ribs, 25 cents," "Best spring lamb, 30 cents," and "Best rump steak, 45 cents." I used to wait until some plump old lady with a market basket came along and read these signs. She often scolded, but I did not then know ...
— The Nomad of the Nine Lives • A. Frances Friebe

... I was guilty of towards my aunt. But I must return to my studies, and tell you what books I found in the closet, and what reading I chiefly admired. There was a great Book of Martyrs in which I used to read, or rather I used to spell out meanings; for I was too ignorant to make out many words; but there it was written all about those good men who chose to be burnt alive, rather than forsake their religion, and become naughty papists. ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... tongue; and when, a week later, he walked into Helston and bought a Mercury off the Sherborne rider, and got the landlord of the 'Angel' to spell out the list of killed and wounded, sure enough, there among the killed was Drummer John ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... building, for the destruction of which John Knox was responsible. Many generations of my forefathers slept side by side in one particular portion of the cathedral grounds, and here my grandfather used to bring me to play among the tombs and to spell out the names of kinsmen who had died a century or more before my own earthly pilgrimage began. The whole place, with its noble ruins of castle and cathedral, its grey and empty streets, its venerable ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.

... when they reached the house where little Mungie lived, and then, turning, saw us and salaamed. One of the two was Mungie's elder sister. Little Mungie ran out to meet her sister, and, seeing us, eagerly asked for a book. So we stood in the open moonlight, and the little one tried to spell out the words of a text to show us she had not forgotten all she had learned, even though she, too, had been taken from school, and had to learn pages of poetry and the ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael

... she was allus 'spectin' sumptin' what never comed. The letters was short, but it took her a mighty time to read 'em, 'case you see she wasn't good at readin' writin', an' I 'specs de Colonel's handwrite wasn't very plain. She used to spell out de long words, whisperin' 'em out sometimes, her face changin' till all de brightness was gone, an' it was more like a storm on de river than sun-up. Den she'd fold de letter, an' take up de lil chile ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes

... flood of words was turned inward, like a river which suddenly disappears underground. But then the river took its revenge. What a debauch of speeches, of unuttered conversations which no one heard but herself! Sometimes her lips would move as they do with people who have to spell out the syllables to themselves as they read so as to ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... meaningless as to have no value at all. The only physical phenomena which can have any direct bearing on spirit communication are the tappings and table tippings which can by a deal of ingenuity be made to spell out a message or answer questions yes or no. The same question as to the source of the suggestion enters here. Even if we admit the taps to spell out a message, we have still to decide from whom the message comes and the messages alleged to be contributed through the ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins

... The voice of the parson muttered words in a low voice, but she did not listen. She found herself trying to spell out the Manx text printed over the chancel arch: "Bannet T'eshyn Ta Cheet ayns Ennyn y Chearn" ("Blessed is he that cometh in the name ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... to Vernon with a delicate, subtle, faint suggestion of proprietorship in her tone. At least that was how it seemed to Betty. To Temple it seemed that she was tacitly apologising to an old friend for having involuntarily broken up a dinner a deux. To Vernon her tone seemed to spell out an all but overmastering jealousy proudly overmastered. All that pretty fiction of there being now no possibility of sentiment between him and her flickered down and died. And with it the interest that he had felt in her. "She have unexplored reserves? ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit

... smile to the inscription, sure that those windows, those porches, that armour, never were of crusading date, and ready to refute the old peasant. You spell out the upright Gothic letters around the cornice of the tomb, and ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the Queen, and biddeth call one of his own chaplains. Then maketh he all the knights in the hall be seated and keep silence, and commandeth the chaplain that he should spell out the letters of gold all openly according as he should find them written. The chaplain looketh at them, and when he had scanned ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown

... a magic Ka fashioned with many a spell out of yonder ancient roll, that can bring him to the tomb if it be rightly used, as ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard

... destroyed, for its clasp happened to be a very tight one, and tended greatly to preserve it. When father and son finally took up their abode in the cavern, the former resolved to devote some time night and morning to reading the Testament. He could spell out the capital letters, and Billy had, before quitting home, got the length of reading words of one syllable. Their united knowledge was thus very slight, but it was quite sufficient to enable them to overcome all difficulties, and in time they ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne

... and bedded, he began the task of teaching him that very night. It was not much of a task to Diamond for his father took for the lesson book the same one which North Wind had waved the leaves of on the sands at Sandwich. Within a month, he was able to spell out most of the verses for himself. But he never found in it the river song which he thought his mother had read from it. Could it have been North Wind doing the reading in his ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • Elizabeth Lewis and George MacDonald

... drove the ageing fighter forward still with hope and faith. No doubt she still turned the kitchen saucer that did duty for planchette, unconsciously pushing its blunted pencil towards the letters that should spell out coming help. No doubt she still wore that marvellous tea-gown garment that did duty for so many different toilettes, even wearing it when she went with goloshes and umbrella to practise Sunday's hymns every Saturday night on the wheezy church harmonium. And most likely ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood



Words linked to "Spell out" :   particularise, specialize, spell, misspell, recite, write, specialise, particularize, specify



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