set a spell

English

Pronunciation

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Verb

set a spell (third-person singular simple present sets a spell, present participle setting a spell, simple past and past participle set a spell)

1. (US, idiomatic, countrified dialect) To sit down for a period of time, especially in the company of other people and in order to relax or to engage in casual conversation.

   Synonym: visit a spell

   • 1876, Louisa May Alcott, “The Romance of a Summer Day”, in Silver Pitchers: and Independence:

     [S]he declined his invitation to "Come up and see the old woman and set a spell."

   • 1906, Myrtle Reed, chapter 2, in A Spinner in the Sun:

     "You might as well set down," remarked Miss Hitty, with a new gentleness of manner. "I'm going to set a spell."

   • 2000 January 30, Steve Strunsky, “New Jersey and Co.: Inside 'Big Box' Project, Threats to 'Little Boxes'”, in New York Times, retrieved 25 June 2011:

     Hank's Hardware is one of those quintessentially American places. . . . Hank's is a place where people can set a spell, but it is also a business, competing in the ever-tightening hardware marketplace.

   • 2005 November 24, Jean Parks, “Opinion: Retirement fulfills”, in USA Today, retrieved 25 June 2011:

     In this country community, we enjoy our neighbors as we never could before. There is time to set a spell and talk about the weather, family and days gone by.

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see set,‎ a,‎ spell.
   • 2006 May, Stobie Piel, Prince of Ice, New York, N.Y.: Love Spell, Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc., →ISBN, page 84:

     “Did the witch set a spell on you, too, Bodvar?”

Anagrams

• lap steels, pastelles, petalless, plateless, pleatless