spike

C2+ Topic:Materials & Substances

US /spaɪk/ UK /spaɪk/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

noun
a thin pointed piece of metal, or a sharp sudden increase

Demand showed a sharp spike after the discount was announced.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · a thin pointed piece of... pointprongnail barb surgeupsurgepeak

Opposites

drop decline dip plunge

Word family

Derived forms spikyspiked

Simplified etymology

Spike, meaning a sharp-pointed piece of metal or wood, entered Middle English from Dutch or German. The corresponding verb developed later, in the early 17th century.

Etymology

From Middle English spik ('nail, sharp point'), probably from Old Norse spík ('splinter') or Middle Dutch spiker, ultimately of Proto-Germanic origin.

spík Old Norse *spīkō Proto-Germanic

View etymology graph ->

Topics

Materials & Substances

External links

# spike

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** /spaɪk/
**IPA (UK):** /spaɪk/

## Meanings
1. a thin pointed piece of metal, or a sharp sudden increase

## Examples
- Demand showed a sharp spike after the discount was announced.

## Synonyms
- point
- prong
- nail
- barb
- surge
- upsurge
- peak

## Antonyms
- drop
- decline
- dip
- plunge

## Derived Forms
- spiky
- spiked

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: spík
- Root: *spīkō

## Etymology
From Middle English spik ('nail, sharp point'), probably from Old Norse spík ('splinter') or Middle Dutch spiker, ultimately of Proto-Germanic origin.

## AI Etymology
Spike comes from Middle English spik ('nail, sharp point'), probably from Old Norse spík ('splinter') or Middle Dutch spiker, ultimately of Proto-Germanic origin. The historical chain includes Old Norse spík and Proto-Germanic *spīkō. Older glosses in the chain include "nail, sharp point" and "splinter", which help explain the semantic range of the modern word. Morphologically, spike is best read as borrowing, yielding an English noun and verb shaped by both form history and later usage. In current English it functions as a noun and verb, with the sense "a thin pointed piece of metal, or a sharp sudden increase". English derivatives include spiky and spiked. The result is an English noun and verb whose etymology preserves the older forms while supporting the word's specialized modern meaning.

## Topics
- Materials & Substances

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