spell noun

1 period of time

ADJ. lengthy, long, prolonged | brief, short | 5-minute, 10-day, etc. | good | bad He's going through a bit of a bad spell at the moment. | quiet | barren, lean Viera ended his barren spell with a goal against Parma. | cold, dry, hot, mild, sunny, warm, wet

VERB + SPELL go through, have

PREP. during a … ~ She managed to write a letter during a quiet spell at work. | ~ as He had a brief spell as ambassador to Turkey.

PHRASES a spell of … weather a spell of sunny weather | a spell of unemployment

2 magical effect

ADJ. magic, magical | powerful | hypnotic the hypnotic spell of the crickets singing in the garden

VERB + SPELL be/come/fall under | cast, put, weave The witch cast a spell on/over them. | break, remove She uttered the magic word, and the spell was broken.

PREP. under a/the ~ Sleeping Beauty was under a spell when the prince found her. | under sb's ~ The audience was completely under his spell.

spell verb

ADV. correctly, wrongly

PREP. as The article spelled ‘survey’ as ‘servay’. | with Is ‘necessary’ spelt with one ‘s’, or two? PHRASAL VERBS spell sth out

ADV. clearly | fully, in detail | exactly, precisely She spelled out precisely what she wanted.

VERB + SPELL have to, need to

PREP. for Do I really have to spell it out for you? | to His speech spelled out a clear message to the car industry.

You can also check other dicts: spell (English, 中文解释 ), wordnet sense, Collins Definition

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