[f. SPIRE v.1]
1. That spires or rises up taperingly to a point; freq. poet. or rhet., soaring aloft or reaching to a great height: a. Of edifices, rocks, etc.
1538. Leland, Itin., VIII. (1909), III. 59. The old building of the chirch of the abbay remayneth having ii. goodly spiring steples.
1613–6. W. Browne, Brit. Past., I. iv. Carved Monuments, Spiring Colosses and high raised rents.
1738. [G. Smith], Cur. Relat., II. 275. Surrounded … by spiring Rocks, some eight, some sixteen, and others thirty Foot high.
1774. Pennant, Tour Scotl. in 1772, 343. Spiring summits of vast Mountains.
1800. Bentham, in Ess. Goth. Archit., 85. This chapel … is supported by strong spiring buttresses.
1825. Stranger’s Comp. Cambr., 53. From its roof rises a spiring and airy lantern.
1906. Cornford, Defenceless Islands, 30. The graceful lines, the spiring masts,… suggest swift motion.
b. fig. Of the spirit.
1618. Lithgow, Pilgr. Farewell, A iij. Prayse-worthie Pilgrime, whose so spiring Sprite Restes not content, incentred in one Soyle.
c. Of trees. (Cf. SPIRAL a.2 b.)
1707. Mortimer, Husb., 390. If each other of these Trees be a spiring Tree, and the odd one between, a Fruit-tree to spread.
1801. Southey, Thalaba, I. xxiii. All trees that bend with luscious fruit…. Or point their spiring heads to heaven.
1857. Thoreau, Maine W., ii. (1867), 102. The lofty, spiring tops of the spruce and fir.
1886. Mrs. Flor. Caddy, Footsteps Jeanne D’Arc, 12. The spiring groves of distant elm and poplar are thrown out by the white clouds.
2. Of grass or plants: Shooting, sprouting; running up into a spire or stem.
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., xvi. 48. Where now the sharp-edg’d scythe shears up the spiring grass.
1677. Plot, Oxfordsh., 241. They … plough it early in the year as soon as their clay is fallowed, and then there will spring some spiring-grass that will keep it from scorching.
1863. W. W. Story, Roba di R., II. iv. 115. Their spiring weeds that grow out of the eaves of the … moss-stained tiles.
