Western-style cowboy spurs (1).

Rocky spur (7)

spurs on Linaria pelisseriana (19)

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /spɜː/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /spɝ/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• (Scotland) IPA^(key): /spʌr/
• (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /spøː/
• (Liverpool, fair–fur merger) IPA^(key): /speː/
• (Humberside, Teesside, fair–fur merger) IPA^(key): /spɛː/
• (Lancashire, fair–fur merger) IPA^(key): /spɜː(ɹ)/
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)
• Homophone: spare (fair–fur merger)

From Middle English spure, spore, from Old English spora, spura, from Proto-West Germanic *spurō, from Proto-Germanic *spurô, from Proto-Indo-European *sperH- (“to kick”).

spur (plural spurs)

1. A rigid implement, often roughly y-shaped, that is fixed to one's heel for the purpose of prodding a horse. Often worn by, and emblematic of, the cowboy or the knight.

   Meronyms: rowel, prick

   • 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene vi], line 4:

     Lives he, good uncle? thrice within this hour I saw him down; thrice up again, and fighting; From helmet to the spur all blood he was.

   • 1786, Francis Grose, “Tilting Armour”, in A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons, […], London: […] S. Hooper, […], →OCLC, page 28:

     Tvvo ſorts of ſpurs ſeem to have been in uſe about the time of the Conqueſt, one called a pryck, having only a ſingle point like the gaffle of a fighting cock; the other conſiſting of a number of points of a conſiderable length, radiating from and revolving on a center, thence named the rouelle or vvheel ſpur.

2. A jab given with the spurs.
   • 1832, The Atheneum, volume 31, page 493:

     I had hardly said the word, when Kit jumped into the saddle, and gave his horse a whip and a spur — and off it cantered, as if it were in as great a hurry to be married as Kit himself.

3. (figurative) Anything that inspires or motivates, as a spur does a horse.
   • c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Famous Historie of Troylus and Cresseid. […] (First Quarto), London: […] G[eorge] Eld for R[ichard] Bonian and H[enry] Walley, […], published 1609, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]:

     She is a theame of honour and renowne, / A ſpurre to valiant and magnanimous deeds, / Whoſe preſent courage may beate downe our foes, / And fame in time to come canonize us, [...]

4. An appendage or spike pointing rearward, near the foot, for instance that of a rooster.
5. Any protruding part connected at one end, for instance a highway that extends from another highway into a city.
6. Roots, tree roots.
   • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:

     […] the strong-bas'd promontory / Have I made shake; and by the spurs pluck'd up / The pine and cedar […]

   • 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii], line 57:

     I do note / That grief and patience, rooted in them both, / Mingle their spurs together.

7. (geology) A mountain that shoots from another mountain or range and extends some distance in a lateral direction, or at right angles.
8. A spiked iron worn by seamen upon the bottom of the boot, to enable them to stand upon the carcass of a whale to strip off the blubber.
9. (carpentry) A brace strengthening a post and some connected part, such as a rafter or crossbeam; a strut.
10. (architecture) The short wooden buttress of a post.
11. (architecture) A projection from the round base of a column, occupying the angle of a square plinth upon which the base rests, or bringing the bottom bed of the base to a nearly square form. It is generally carved in leafage.
12. Ergotized rye or other grain.
13. A wall in a fortification that crosses a part of a rampart and joins to an inner wall.
14. (shipbuilding) A piece of timber fixed on the bilgeways before launching, having the upper ends bolted to the vessel's side.
15. (shipbuilding) A curved piece of timber serving as a half to support the deck where a whole beam cannot be placed.
16. (mining) A branch of a vein.
17. (rail transport) A very short branch line of a railway line.
18. (transport) A short branch road of a motorway, freeway or major road.
19. (botany) A short thin side shoot from a branch, especially one that bears fruit or, in conifers, the shoots that bear the leaves.

spur (third-person singular simple present spurs, present participle spurring, simple past and past participle spurred)

1. (transitive) To prod (especially a horse) on the side or flank, with the intent to urge motion or haste, to gig.
   • c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii], line 339:

     Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head! Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood; Amaze the welkin with your broken staves!

2. (transitive) To urge or encourage to action, or to a more vigorous pursuit of an object

   Synonyms: incite, stimulate, instigate, impel, drive; see also Thesaurus:incite

   • c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iv], line 4:

     My desire / (More sharp than filed steel) did spur me forth...

   • 1940 May, “Overseas Railways: Acceleration Proceeds in U.S.A.”, in Railway Magazine, page 298:

     But the latest Santa Fe development, while not spurring the Rock Island to any further acceleration, has drawn fire from a totally unexpected quarter.

   • 2014 November 17, Roger Cohen, “The horror! The horror! The trauma of ISIS [print version: International New York Times, 18 November 2014, p. 9]”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     What is unbearable, in fact, is the feeling, 13 years after 9/11, that America has been chasing its tail; that, in some whack-a-mole horror show, the quashing of a jihadi enclave here only spurs the sprouting of another there; that the ideology of Al Qaeda is still reverberating through a blocked Arab world whose Sunni-Shia balance (insofar as that went) was upended by the American invasion of Iraq.

3. (transitive) To put spurs on.

   to spur boots

4. (intransitive) To press forward; to travel in great haste.
5. To form a spur (senses 17-18 of the noun)
   • 2021 June 16, Andrew Mourant, “Plans for new test centre remain on track: Testing for rolling stock and infrastructure”, in RAIL, number 933, page 42:

     It spurs off the Robin Hood line, providing ten miles of single-line test track with a three-mile double section, capable of testing up to 75mph.

• spur on

See sparrow.

spur (plural spurs)

1. A tern.

Short for spurious.

spur (plural spurs)

1. (electronics) A spurious tone, one that interferes with a signal in a circuit and is often masked underneath that signal.

spur (plural spurs)

1. The track of an animal, such as an otter; a spoor.

spur (third-person singular simple present spurs, present participle spurring, simple past and past participle spurred)

1. (obsolete, dialectal) Alternative form of speer.
   • c. 1590 (date written), [John Lyly], Mother Bombie. […], 2nd edition, London: […] Thomas Creede, for Cuthbert Burby, published 1598, →OCLC, Act IV, scene ii:

     I haue yonder vncouered a faire girle, Ile be ſo bolde as ſpur her, vvhat might a bodie call her name?

   • 1625, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, “The Elder Brother. A Comedy.”, in Fifty Comedies and Tragedies. […], [part 1], London: […] J[ohn] Macock [and H. Hills], for John Martyn, Henry Herringman, and Richard Marriot, published 1679, →OCLC, Act IV, scene iv, page 119, column 1:

     Are you come, old Maſter? Very good, your Horſe is well ſet up; but ere you part, I'll ride you, and ſpur your Reverend Juſticeſhip ſuch a queſtion, as I ſhall make the ſides of your Reputation bleed, truly I will. Now muſt I play at Bo-peep.

   • 1638, Thomas Heywood, "The Rape of Lucrece. A true Roman Tragedy", in The Dramatic Works of Thomas Heywood, Vol. V, John Pearson, 1874, pages 230 & 231.

     Clo[wne]. Fie upon't, never was poore Pompey ſo overlabour'd as I have beene, I thinke I have ſpurd my horſe ſuch a queſtion, that he is ſcarce able to wig or wag his tayle for an anſwere, but my Lady bad me ſpare for no horſe fleſh, and I thinke I have made him runne his race.

   • The Pall Mall Magazine, Vol. 33, 1904, page 435.

     They hadde spurred questions all the morning, his Majestie being so grossly overtaken with two whole nights' feasting, (which meant a surfeit of sausage laid upon a stomach not over strong), that between sick and sullen he bore a dull edge to the business.

• Prus, purs, surp

spur

1. alternative form of spore

• sparra
• spug
• spuggie
• speug

spur (plural spurs)

1. sparrow

• “spur”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC.