Spice. We have in English a double adoption of the Latin ‘species,’ namely ‘spice’ and ‘species’. ‘Spice,’ the earlier form (Old French ‘espice’), is now limited to certain aromatic drugs, which, as consisting of various kinds, have this name of ‘spices.’ But ‘spice’ was once employed as ‘species’ is now.
Absteyne you fro al yvel spice [ab omni specie malâ, Vulg.]—1 Thess. v. 22. Wiclif.
The spices of envye ben these.—Chaucer, The Persones Tale (Morris, p. 304).
Justice, although it be but one entire virtue, yet is described in two kinds of spices. The one is named justice distributive, the other is called commutative.—Sir T. Elyot, The Governor, b. iii. c. 1.
Spill. Nothing appears so utterly and irrecoverably lost as liquid poured upon the ground; and thus it has come to pass that ‘to spill,’ the Ο. E. ‘spillan,’ which had once the meaning of to waste, to squander, to consume, to destroy, and that in any way, is now restricted to this single meaning.
O litel child, alas! what is thi gilt,
That never wroughtest synne as yet, parde?
Why wil thyn harde fader han the spilt?
Chaucer, The Man of Lawes Tale.
If the colors ... be not well tempered or not well laid, or be used in excess, or never so little disordered and misplaced, they disfigure the stuff, and spill the whole workmanship, taking away all beauty and good liking from it.—Puttenham, Art of English Poesy, b. iii. c. 1.