spell, Etymology 1
Etymology 1
From Middle English spell, spel,
from Old English spell (“news, story”),
from Proto-Germanic *spellą (“speech, account, tale”),
from Proto-Indo-European *spel- (“to tell”) or
from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- (“to speak, to sound”) with the s-mobile prefix.
Cognate with dialectal German Spill, Icelandic spjall (“discussion, talk”),
spjalla (“to discuss, to talk”),
guðspjall (“gospel”) and