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say it: sper
spare is an adjective, verb and noun meaning "thin and fit". It is pronounced /ˈspɛɹ/ — sper. It carries 13 recorded senses.
more than is needed, desired, or required
“trying to lose excess weight”
“found some extra change lying on the dresser”
“yet another book on heraldry might be thought redundant”
“skills made redundant by technological advance”
“sleeping in the spare room”
“supernumerary ornamentation”
“it was supererogatory of her to gloat”
“delete superfluous (or unnecessary) words”
“extra ribs as well as other supernumerary internal parts”
“surplus cheese distributed to the needy”
not taken up by scheduled activities
“a free hour between classes”
“spare time on my hands”
kept in reserve especially for emergency use
“a reserve supply of food”
“a spare tire”
“spare parts”
lacking embellishment or ornamentation
“a plain hair style”
“unembellished white walls”
“functional architecture featuring stark unornamented concrete”
save or relieve from an experience or action
“I'll spare you from having to apologize formally”
give up what is not strictly needed
“he asked if they could spare one of their horses to speed his journey”
use frugally or carefully
an extra component of a machine or other apparatus
an extra car wheel and tire for a four-wheel vehicle
a score in tenpins; knocking down all ten after rolling two balls
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for spare come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.