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# spire

«spire» in Mova's school dictionary: **a tall, pointed, cone-shaped structure on top of a…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

noun (a spire, spires)

### meaning for a pupil

1) A spire is a tall, pointed, cone-shaped structure on top of a building, usually on a church tower. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spire/#m1)

2) A spire can be anything tall, thin and pointed, like a rock spire or the tip of a tree. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spire/#m2)

### sense in the lessons

Church life and buildings: many towns in the UK and Ireland have a church spire you can see from far away; it points upward to heaven. Maths: a spire is often shaped like a cone or a pyramid. Geography: Oxford is called «the city of dreaming spires». Salisbury Cathedral has the tallest church spire in the UK.

### examples

- The church spire rose above the village. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spire/#x1)
- Salisbury Cathedral has a very tall spire. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spire/#x2)
- We could see the spire from the motorway. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spire/#x3)
- Oxford is famous for its spires. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spire/#x4)
- Lightning struck the spire during the storm. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spire/#x5)
- Rocky spires stood up from the sea. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spire/#x6)
- A spire is shaped like a tall cone. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spire/#x7)
- All they could see was a mass of towers and steeples behind the green walls, and high up above everything the spires and dome of the Palace of Oz. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spire/#x8)

### note

Countable. Do not confuse with «spiral», «steeple» (the tower and spire together) or «inspire». A spire sits on top of a tower; a steeple usually means the whole tower plus spire.

### In the corpora

- [Lincoln Cathedral in England was probably the tallest building in the world for about 200 years, until its spire fell in 1548.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/21-castles-knights-and-cathedrals/17/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «spire» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spire/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.