(n.) A young oyster or other bivalve mollusk, both before and after it first becomes adherent, or such young, collectively.
(v. i. & t.) To emit spawn; to emit, as spawn.
(n.) A light blow with something flat.
(n.) Hence, a petty combat, esp. a verbal one; a little quarrel, dispute, or dissension.
(v. i.) To dispute.
(v. t.) To slap, as with the open hand; to clap together; as the hands.
() of Spit
Example Sentences:
(1) But the Franco-British spat sparked by Dave's rejection of Angela and Nicolas's cunning plan to save the euro has been given wings by news the US credit agencies may soon strip France of its triple-A rating and is coming along very nicely, thank you. "
(2) If wide notice is taken of a current spat over what we can read about Shakespeare’s sexuality into the sonnets in the correspondence columns of the Times Literary Supplement, Sonnet 20 may be a future favourite at civil unions.
(3) He wanted to stay on longer than the traditional retirement age but became involved in a nasty spat with the then-chairman, Peter Sutherland.
(4) He’s spat on and has wee thrown at him.” Rutherford is also concerned about the governance of the sport.
(5) Venom entered the eyes of 9 patients spat at by the spitting cobra, Naja nigricollis.
(6) The British parliament’s vote against airstrikes has long been cited by Obama and others as a causal factor but Kerry made the link explicit just a week after a diplomatic spat with the UK’s prime minister, Theresa May, over a United Nations resolution that condemned Israel.
(7) The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, has attempted to seize the initiative in the bitter spat on energy prices by pledging a 20-month freeze .
(8) She had been sworn at and spat on – anything to force the expression they wanted on to her face.
(9) Some said they saw stones; others said they had been spat at.
(10) The England winger has been training with the under-21s for the past two and a half months after being frozen out by Mauricio Pochettino in the wake of his public spat with Nathan Gardiner, Tottenham’s fitness coach, following a win against Aston Villa in November.
(11) By the time the latest spat came before the FCC, Karr argues, net activists had sharpened their tactics and raised their game.
(12) Still alive, he was then surrounded by people who cursed and spat at him, kicked him in the head and tried to hit him with a chair.
(13) The Greece midfielder Giannis Maniatis was so enraged after a training ground spat that he booked a himself on a flight back to Athens before being persuaded not to walk out on Fernando Santos’s squad.
(14) Mariano Rajoy said he did not want the dispute to "go further", after a spat about fishing escalated into a full-blown diplomatic row with Britain.
(15) They are saying she needs to realise that she needs to build allies.” The Tory source spoke out after Kenneth Clarke blew into the open a spat between the Conservative leadership and the home secretary’s team after two of May’s special advisers declined to take part in telephone canvassing in the recent Rochester and Strood byelection.
(16) It is understood Cameron and the Lib Dem leader have agreed to cool the coalition tensions that have boiled over into public spats – and there were signs yesterday that was having some effect after it was clear that Labour was making capital from the dispute.
(17) Padoan said the US's budget spat posed significant threats to the US and the global economy but said that Europe presented a larger challenge.
(18) However, after several years of improving relations and increasing trade, China and Japan have much to lose from a prolonged deterioration in ties, and will be wary of letting the spat get out of hand.
(19) Ahmadinejad has been drawn into a bruising power struggle with the conservatives, many of them his former supporters, and has mounted serious challenges to Khamenei, such as engaging in public spats with top-level officials.
(20) Former Netanyahu aide lambasts US ambassador in heated spat Read more “These provocative acts are bound to increase the growth of settler populations, further heighten tensions and undermine any prospects for a political road ahead,” Ban told a United Nations security council meeting on the Middle East.
Spate
Definition:
(n.) A river flood; an overflow or inundation.
Example Sentences:
(1) In recent years, a spate of health care reform proposals have emerged on the American agenda.
(2) The processing centre been seized by more than a month of daily protests, as well as a spate of suicide attempts over the last 48 hours.
(3) The year since Jo Cox’s death has seen rapid political change around the world: unexpected election results, a rise in digital interference in democratic elections by foreign powers , and a spate of appalling terrorist attacks.
(4) There has been a spate of thefts of rhino horns and elephant tusks from European museums, zoos and auction houses in recent years, amid a rising illegal trade in poached or stolen ivory .
(5) A spate of suicides by employees of an electronics giant in China has fuelled concern about the pressures of factory life and the emotional vulnerability of young employees.
(6) Angry demonstrations over the government’s refusal to relieve Kobani , the Syrian canton under siege from the brutal group calling itself Islamic State (Isis), led to a spate of deaths.
(7) A series of measures have been brought in since the December attack aimed at making women safer, but despite these, there has been a spate of attacks on women in Delhi since the beginning of March, including four reported assaults on girls under 18.
(8) Rosenberg agreed, pointing out that the spate of bad news was falling at a critical time in the election cycle, when senior politicians had to finally decide whether to throw their hat in the ring.
(9) An estimate is made of the frequency and effects of spates.
(10) The service has been hit by a spate of station closures over the past 18 months, including TheJazz, OneWord, Core and Capital Life.
(11) It's the first interview he's done since his marriage and divorce and the split-up of the Ordinary Boys, and it all comes rushing out in a spate, a tangle of chronological confusions and jokes, and groans when I quote some of his old interviews back at him, and statements of contrition, and digressions about Dawkins or whatever, and here's the confounding thing - he's really nothing like I was expecting, not indie-boy sulky, or attempting to play it cool, he's just talkative and engaging, and he has a sense of humour about himself that, from reading his previous interviews, I wouldn't have even guessed at.
(12) Calls are mounting for hardline Jewish settlers to be classified as terrorists after a spate of attacks on Palestinian property in the West Bank and Israel , and threats of violence towards Israeli soldiers.
(13) As in journals elsewhere there followed a spate of articles reporting various aspects of cocaine and its usage, including an abortive attempt to find an alternative agent.
(14) Merkel’s office has not commented on her dictionary nomination so far, though they might arguably have been able to insist the word was rude or discriminatory, on the same grounds that the nominated word “Alpha Kevin”, meaning the “thickest person of all” was removed from Langenscheidt list, after a reported spate of complaints from people called Kevin, or their parents.
(15) Shirin Ebadi , the Iranian Nobel peace prizewinner, joined human rights organisations in February this year in appealing to Iran to impose a moratorium on executions – but after a brief pause following a spate of adverse international publicity, the pace of judicial killings has accelerated again.
(16) A spate of US companies have sought acquisitions in the UK and elsewhere this year to gain a lower rate of corporation tax.
(17) The coalition's radical shake-up of the planning system was designed to unleash a spate of new housebuilding.
(18) The chair of the Senate subcommittee on privacy, technology and the law wrote to the company last month setting out ten questions after a spate of incidents that he said indicated a “troubling disregard for customers’ privacy”.
(19) "A toxic mix of gold, greed and alcohol has resulted in a spate of brutal murders in the interior," the newspaper reported, cataloguing killings involving miners, jewellers and shopkeepers working at the gold mines.
(20) Donald Trump has made the most direct appeal of his campaign to African American voters as he battles to offset dismal polling among black voters and draw political capital from a recent spate of racially charged unrest in the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.