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On the spot   /ɑn ðə spɑt/   Listen
noun
Spot  n.  
1.
A mark on a substance or body made by foreign matter; a blot; a place discolored. "Out, damned spot! Out, I say!"
2.
A stain on character or reputation; something that soils purity; disgrace; reproach; fault; blemish. "Yet Chloe, sure, was formed without a spot."
3.
A small part of a different color from the main part, or from the ground upon which it is; as, the spots of a leopard; the spots on a playing card.
4.
A small extent of space; a place; any particular place. "Fixed to one spot." "That spot to which I point is Paradise." ""A jolly place," said he, "in times of old! But something ails it now: the spot is cursed.""
5.
(Zool.) A variety of the common domestic pigeon, so called from a spot on its head just above its beak.
6.
(Zool.)
(a)
A sciaenoid food fish (Liostomus xanthurus) of the Atlantic coast of the United States. It has a black spot behind the shoulders and fifteen oblique dark bars on the sides. Called also goody, Lafayette, masooka, and old wife.
(b)
The southern redfish, or red horse, which has a spot on each side at the base of the tail. See Redfish.
7.
pl. Commodities, as merchandise and cotton, sold for immediate delivery. (Broker's Cant)
Crescent spot (Zool.), any butterfly of the family Melitaeidae having crescent-shaped white spots along the margins of the red or brown wings.
Spot lens (Microscopy), a condensing lens in which the light is confined to an annular pencil by means of a small, round diaphragm (the spot), and used in dark-field illumination; called also spotted lens.
Spot rump (Zool.), the Hudsonian godwit (Limosa haemastica).
Spots on the sun. (Astron.) See Sun spot, ander Sun.
On the spot, or Upon the spot, immediately; before moving; without changing place; as, he made his decision on the spot. "It was determined upon the spot."
Synonyms: Stain; flaw; speck; blot; disgrace; reproach; fault; blemish; place; site; locality.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"On the spot" Quotes from Famous Books



... as good as the day was long, and who loved her husband desperately. One day she saw him a little annoyed, and said: "What makes you feel so?" "What should make me feel so! I have important business to attend to, and must go and see to it on the spot." "And are you annoyed about that? let us arrange matters thus: you will leave me provisions and close up all the doors and windows but one high up; make me a wicket, and then depart." "The advice pleases me," said her ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane

... lost his life each time. It was long before the first man reported that he had finished; they were all to open their dogs, and take out the entrails to prevent the meat being contaminated. The entrails were for the most part devoured warm on the spot by the victims' comrades, so voracious were they all. Suggen, one of Wisting's dogs, was especially eager for warm entrails; after enjoying this luxury, he could be seen staggering about in a quite misshapen condition. Many of the dogs would not touch them at ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... rest of it," snapped Miss Price, cutting the tale short. "I'll dock you both half a day's pay: and the next time it happens you'll both be fired on the spot." ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson

... his hand, and he was bowing low, so too were Captain Puffin and the Padre, while Irene, Diva and Evie were making little ducking movements.... Miss Mapp was determined, when it came to her turn, to show them, as she happened to be on the spot, what a proper ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... on the spot, and it's your duty to join us. Anthony Thurston was always eccentric, and has left us a very troublesome charge. Her husband is not to get at the money, and this discrimination between man and wife is going to be confoundedly ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss


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