spell

(From AngSax. spelian to supply another's room; to act or be proxy for.--Bosworth.) A turn of work; a vicissitude of labor.--Todd's Johnson. It is often used in a secondary sense, to denote a short turn; a little time; about; a fit; and is applied particularly to work, to sickness, or to the weather. Provincial in England and colloquial in the United States.

Their toil is so extreme as they cannot endure it above four hours in a day, but are succeeded by spells; the residue of their time they wear out at coytes and kayles.--Carew.

Come, thou's had thy spell, it's now my time to put in a word.--Carr's Craven Glossary.

Josiah Norton said he had come home from the South, where he had been pedling a spell.--Crockett, Tour, p. 90.

Spain has obtained a breathing spell of some duration from the internal convulsions which have, through so many years, marred her prosperity.--President Tyler's Message to Congress, 1844.

I and the General have got things now pretty considerable snug; public affairs go on easier than they did a spell ago, when Mr. Adams was President.--Maj. Downing's Letters, p. 35.

During the same spell of weather, two waggoners and some oxen were frozen on the prairie.--Hoffman, Winter in the West, Let. 26.