noun

• (obsolete) Speech, discourse.

verb

• (intransitive, transitive, sometimes with “out”) To write or say the letters that form a word or part of a word.
  "I find it difficult to spell because I'm dyslexic."
• (transitive, obsolete) To read (something) as though letter by letter; to peruse slowly or with effort.
  ""He'll do," said Bildad, eyeing me, and then went on spelling away at his book in a mumbling tone quite audible."
• (transitive) Of letters: to compose (a word).
  "The letters “a”, “n” and “d” spell “and”."
• (transitive, figuratively, with “out”) To clarify; to explain in detail.
  "Please spell it out for me."

verb

• (transitive) To work in place of (someone).
  "to spell the helmsman"
• (transitive) To rest (someone or something), to give someone or something a rest or break.
  "They spelled the horses and rested in the shade of some trees near a brook."
• (intransitive, colloquial) To rest from work for a time.

noun

• (informal) A definite period (of work or other activity).
  "A chap named Eleazir Kendrick and I had chummed in together the summer afore and built a fish-weir and shanty at Setuckit Point, down Orham way. For a spell we done pretty well. Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand."
• (colloquial) An indefinite period of time (usually with a qualifier); by extension, a relatively short distance.
  "Even Mrs. Harker seems to lose sight of her trouble for whole spells. [...] When he had spoken, Mina's long spell of silence made me look at her."
• (colloquial, US) A period of illness, or sudden interval of bad spirits, disease etc.
• (cricket) An uninterrupted series of alternate overs bowled by a single bowler.