- spelt
- spelt (n.) O.E. spelt, perhaps an early borrowing from L.L. spelta "spelt" (c.400, noted as a foreign word), which is perhaps ultimately from PIE root *spel- "to split, to break off" (probably in reference to the splitting of its husks in threshing), which is related to the root of FLINT (Cf. flint). The word had little currency in English, and its history is discontinuous. Widespread in Romanic languages (Cf. It. spelta, Sp. espelta, O.Fr. spelte, Mod.Fr. épeautre). The word also is widespread in Germanic (Cf. O.H.G. spelta, Ger. Spelt), and a Germanic language is perhaps the source of the Late Latin word.
Etymology dictionary. 2014.