Meaning & use
spall
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Meanings
nouncountabletechnical
A chip or flake that has broken away from the surface of stone, concrete or metal.
Grammar: Countable: a spall, several spalls.
Patterns
- a spall of something
A spall of concrete fell from the old bridge onto the road.
The mason brushed the loose spalls from the stone step.
Each spall left a pale scar on the dark rock.
verbtransitive or intransitivetechnical
To break off in chips or flakes, usually because of pressure, frost, heat or impact.
Grammar: Often intransitive: the concrete spalled; sometimes takes an object: the heat spalled the surface.
Patterns
- something spalls
- something spalls off
Freezing and thawing made the brick wall spall year after year.
The concrete may spall if the steel inside begins to rust.
The hammer blow spalled flakes of flint from the core.
Word forms
| plural | spalls |
|---|---|
| third person singular | spalls |
| past tense | spalled |
| past participle | spalled |
| -ing form | spalling |
Common combinations
- concrete spall
- Inspectors found concrete spall under the parking structure.
- spall off
- Pieces of the facade began to spall off after the winter.
- spalling concrete
- Spalling concrete is a warning that the steel inside is corroding.
- repair a spall
- The crew will repair each spall with a special mortar.
- fire-induced spalling
- Fire-induced spalling weakened the tunnel ceiling.
Synonyms and how they differ
- chip
- Chip is the general word for a small broken piece, while spall is used for pieces breaking off a surface under stress.
- flake
- Flake suggests a thin, light piece, whereas a spall can be thicker and heavier.
- fragment
- Fragment can be any broken piece, even from a whole object, but a spall is specifically a surface piece that peels away.
Word family
- spalling noun
- the process of surface pieces breaking off
- spalled adjective
- having lost pieces from its surface
- spallation noun
- in physics, the ejection of fragments from a target hit by particles
Commonly confused: spall or sprawl?
spall vs sprawl
Sprawl means to spread out untidily or lie with limbs spread. It is unrelated to spall, which means to flake off.
Practice
The old bridge was closed because the concrete had begun to ___ in several places.
Choose one answer.
Spall means to break off in chips, which fits damaged concrete. Sprawl, spawn and spill look similar but do not describe surface material breaking away.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “spall”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.