spoon

🥄

Meaning

1. An implement for eating or serving; a scooped utensil whose long handle is straight, in contrast to a ladle.
2. An implement for stirring food while being prepared; a wooden spoon.
3. A measure that will fit into a spoon; a spoonful.
4. A wooden-headed golf club with moderate loft, similar to the modern three wood.
5. (slang) An oar.
6. A type of metal lure resembling the concave head of a tablespoon.
7. (informal) A spoon excavator.
8. (slang) A simpleton, a spoony.
9. A safety handle on a hand grenade, a trigger.
10. (slang) A metaphoric unit of finite physical and mental energy available for daily activities, especially in the context of living with chronic illness or disability.

wooden ladle

spoon-bait

grab bucket

small spoon

brass ladle

fishing lure

hit ball up

spoon bait

spoon slicker

lift van

drop bucket

swinging hopper

hoist bucket

Frequency

Pronounced as (IPA)

/spuːn/

From Middle English spoon, spoune, spone, spon (“spoon, chip of wood”), from Old English spōn (“sliver, chip of wood, shaving”), from Proto-West Germanic *spānu, from Proto-Germanic *spēnuz (“chip, flake, shaving”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)peh₂- (“chip, shaving, log, length of wood”). Cognate with Scots spun, spon (“spoon, shingle”), West Frisian spoen, Dutch spaan (“chip, flinders”), German Span (“chip, flake, shaving”), Swedish spån (“chip, flake”), Faroese spónur (“wood chip; spoon”), Ancient Greek σφήν (sphḗn, “wedge”)(though the connection to the Greek is likely impossible by modern reconstructions of PIE). Eclipsed non-native Middle English cuculer, coclear (“spoon”), from Old English cuculer, cuceler, cucler, borrowed from Latin cochlear (“spoon”). The "metaphoric unit of personal energy" sense was coined by writer and disability advocate Christine Miserandino in 2003 (see spoon theory).