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Spate   /speɪt/   Listen
noun
Spate  n.  A river flood; an overflow or inundation. "Gareth in a showerful spring Stared at the spate."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Spate" Quotes from Famous Books



... half-hearted conversation on trout flies, and as we approached "the American" I was explaining the deadly nature of the Red Palmer after a spate and the advisability of including Greenwell's Glory on the same cast. Unfortunately, as we passed our man there were three other people coming towards us, and he was gazing over the top of the carriage with the same dreaming look that had, according to Dennis, deceived me before. But we were hardly ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux

... at twelve o'clock, after which time no nets are worked till the Sabbath is past, are found and taken on the following Monday near St Boswell's—a distance, as the river winds, of about forty miles. This I have frequently ascertained by experience. When the strength of the current in a spate is considered, and also the sinuous course a salmon must take in order to avoid the strong rapids, their power of swimming must ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine--Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... fecht ower the Confession noo, and laist Sabbath's sermon, in the Kildrummie train, till it's clean reediklus. That's drammin', and when they've hed a year or twa at that they hae their first spatie (spate is a river flood), and that gies them a bit fricht. But aff they set again, and then comes anither spatie, and the doctor hes tae bring them roond. They ca' (drive) cannie for a year or sae, but the feein' market puts the feenishin' titch. ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren

... hours than ordinarily happened in a couple of months. The big trouble was that some of it was, doubtless, completely unconnected with the work of Malone's psychological individual. It was equally certain that some of it wasn't; no normal workings of chance could account for the spate of resignations, deaths, arrests of high officials, freak accidents and everything else he'd ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett

... bridge was visible. I commandeered a man from the first hut we came to, and tried by signs to make him understand that he was to carry the lady across the river; but, luckily, just as we reached the bank of what was a very nasty-looking stream in full spate, the liberated tonga overtook us, and Jane was bundled into it, while we three men waded. The stream was strong and up to our knees, and level with the tonga floor, and the horses getting frightened began to jib. Hill seized ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne


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