spire
noun
[ spʌɪə ]
• a tapering conical or pyramidal structure on the top of a building, typically a church tower.
Origin:
Old English spīr ‘tall slender stem of a plant’; related to German Spier ‘tip of a blade of grass’.
spire
noun
• the upper tapering part of the spiral shell of a gastropod mollusc, comprising all but the whorl containing the body.
Origin:
mid 16th century (in the general sense ‘a spiral’): from French, or via Latin from Greek speira ‘a coil’.
