spoon
n. countablen. a tool with a small, shallow bowl at the end of a handle. You use it for eating, stirring, or serving food.
n. an implement consisting of a small, shallow bowl on a handle. Used primarily for the consumption, preparation, or measurement of food.
I need a clean spoon to eat my soup.
She placed a silver spoon next to the bowl of sugar before serving the tea.
The set includes several sizes of cutlery, ranging from a small teaspoon for stirring to a large ladle-like spoon for serving heavy stews.
From Middle English spoon, spoune, spone, spon (“spoon, chip of wood”), from Old English spōn (“sliver, chip of wood, shaving”), from Proto-West Germanic spānu, from Proto-Germanic spēnuz (“chip, flake, shaving”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)peH- (“chip, shaving, log, length of wood”). Cognate with Scots spun, spon (“spoon, shingle”), West Frisian spoen (“chip”), Dutch spaan (“chip, flinders”), German Span (“chip, flake, shaving”), Swedish spån (“chip, flake”), Norwegian Nynorsk spon (“chip, spoon”), Faroese spónur (“wood chip; spoon”), Ancient Greek σφήν (sphḗn, “wedge”)(though the connection to the Greek is likely impossible by modern reconstructions of PIE). Eclipsed non-native Middle English cuculer, coclear (“spoon”), from Old English cuculer, cuceler, cucler, borrowed from Latin cochlear (“spoon”). The "metaphoric unit of personal energy" sense was coined by writer and disability advocate Christine Miserandino in 2003 (see spoon theory).
Uncertain. Compare spoom.
Commonly used in compound nouns to specify size or function, such as 'tablespoon' or 'wooden spoon'.