Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also speel) to gamble; to spend freely.

1844		New Sprees of London 3: [S]o flare up and speal your tin—shell out like a brick—spend the ochre—crall the Crowns.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 96/1: He might have exaggerated the amounts that Howard was in the habit of ‘spieling’ for.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 8: Speel - To gamble.
1886		Sporting Times 10 Apr. 3/3: Though shpielin’ there was, and no error / [...] / At baccarat, clobbyoss, solo.
1899		A. Binstead Houndsditch Day by Day 123: Ye know we all goes and sphiels now an’ again in a little publican’s back kitchen, vhat sphiels hisself sometimes.
1938		F.D. Sharpe Sharpe of the Flying Squad 333: speel : To gamble.
1941		V. Davis Phenomena in Crime 42: The pair had been ‘spieling’ (gambling).
1977		D. Powis Signs of Crime 202: Spiel, to (a) To gamble.

2. to pose.

1885

Bulletin (Sydney) 28 Mar. 14/1: The Rum, last week, discovered that W. G. George, the famous English amateur runner, was ‘spieling’ under an assumed name at Botany. W. G. George would make two of the runner in question. Another mare’s nest – and, maybe, an expensive one, too.

3. (US) to play.

1879		G.G. Hart E.C.B. Susan Jane 23: So let the music ‘spiel’.
1900		E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 62: spiel, v. 1. To play.

4. (Aus. Und.) to pick pockets.

1894

Truth (Sydney) 14 Jan. 6/6: ‘What game are you at now?’ ‘The game, my boy, the game.’ ‘What, speiling?’ [sic] ‘Speiling be d—, I gave that up this good while. Do you think I’d be such a — fool as to stick my fist into a man’s pockets after his gaunts when he’ll come and give it me himself’ .

5. (US campus) to walk, to saunter.

1894

Star-Gaz. (Elmira, NY) 15 May 4/3: Yale College Slang [...] I went at an easy pace and spieled along Chapel street to look at the queens.

6. (US) to dance, lit. or fig.; thus spieling n.

1896		S. Crane in N.Y. Journal 25 Oct. in Stallman (1966) 164: I’m spieling wit’ dis loidy when I likes.
1902		J.A. Riis Battle with the Slum 395: Two girls ‘spieled’ in the corner, a kind of dancing that is not favored in the playground.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 23 Nov. 2/5: But a second effort shifted her [i.e. a racehorse] and down the course she ‘spiels’.
1911		S. Ford Torchy 173: Could we spiel together? Why, say, we just floats along over the waxed maple boards like a pair of summer butterflies.
1993		(con. c.1900) I.L. Allen City in Sl. (1995) 67: The dance itself was called the spiel and to do the dance was to spiel, whence the gerund spieling and the agentive form spieler.

7. (also speil) to talk; thus spieling n., talk.

1896		Ade Artie (1963) 42: Go on and spiel.
1904		Number 1500 Life In Sing Sing 253: Speiling. Talking.
1908		B. Fisher A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 69: There was a gazabo named Feelin / Who at a big banquet was spielin’.
1913		J. London Valley of the Moon (1914) 287: Here’s the way the chorus goes – an’ remember, it’s the old man spielin’.
1922		S. Lewis Babbitt (1974) 65: He’s always spieling about the ‘value of languages’.
1937		J. Curtis There Ain’t No Justice 142: Lay off of that. You’re spieling knackers.
1938		Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 6 Aug. 11/1: The ace hide-beater of the Universe, Chick Webb [...] spiels that I should hep you that he says hi!
1941		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 7 June. 13: Did you dig ole pops in that stool sheet [...] beatin’ up his bridgework on the way we drape? Jackson it was really some unhipped spieling.
1944		‘Jiver’s Bible’ in D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive.
1952		J. Jones From Here to Eternity (1998) 415: You got to be drunk enough to be sentimental, before you can believe different. No matter how many times you spiel it.
1960		J. Iggulden Storms of Summer 159: Ya want me to do most of the spieling.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 115: Look at me when I’m ‘spieling’ to you.
2002		J. Ellroy ‘Where I Get My Weird Shit’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 31: My dad riffed on nympho movie stars. My mom spieled on actors she nursed.
2009		(con. 1960s) J. Ellroy Blood’s a Rover 16: Wayne watched his dope cook. Dwight spieled more news.

8. to patter, to talk glibly.

1894		S.F. Midwinter Appeal 10 Mar. 1/3: Tell [the barker] to stop spieling now and then [DA].
1908		E. Pound in Witemeyer Pound/Williams Correspondence (1996) 8: Here are a list of facts which I and 9,000,000 other poets have spieled endlessly: 1. Spring is a pleasant season. The flowers, etc. etc. sprout, bloom etc. etc.
1920		T. Thursday ‘Missed in Missouri’ in Top-Notch 15 May 🌐 A handful of citizens listened to Bryan G. Zing, my opener, as if he were spieling in Sanskrit.
1927		(con. 1900s) S. Lewis Elmer Gantry 103: It must make the common people feel awfully common to hear Brother Gantry spiel about the errors of supralapsarianism.
1936		W.A. Gape Half a Million Tramps 139: When my turn came I was not ready to ‘spiel’ off the answers.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 88: The chicks really run their mouths some spieling their life histories in my face.
1959		Mad mag. Sept. 41: The squares will never buy this bit, nor dig the lyrics we spiel here.
1966		T. Keyes All Night Stand 187: Don’t listen to him spieling, you girls.
1978		R. Price Ladies’ Man (1985) 49: I spent a lot of time [...] spieling to jerk-offs.
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 235: He didn’t have an answer, so he spieled on Dudley.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.

9. to ‘shoot a line’, to tell a tale; to perform a confidence trick; thus spiel in v., to attract with patter; spieling n., persuasive talk.

1899–1900		C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 147: He thinks he’s spieling advice for a bunch of active, non-existent Tanks.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 6 May 10/2: ‘Scaling the sports’ who hazard themselves in George’s locomotive is a regular industry among the spieling gentry.
1909		W. Irwin Confessions of a Con Man 120: The mob for whom I spieled made it [i.e. three-card monte] a steady, productive business.
1914		E. Dyson Spats’ Fact’ry (1922) 32: It must ’a’ bin a put-up thing [...] They spieled me!
1933		Ersine Und. and Prison Sl.
1952		J. Jones From Here to Eternity (1998) 599: He was terribly afraid suddenly she would not be able to see that the guys who spieled her were lying.
1953		F. Brown Madball (2019) 5: [of a carnival ‘talker’] [A] voice that proved he’d done spieling back before p.a. systems mechanized it.
1968		T. Wolfe Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1969) 356: They need a barker outside on the sidewalk to spiel in the customers.
1977		D. Powis Signs of Crime 202: Spiel, [...] to spin a yarn.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak 132: Spiel – 2. to tell (tall) stories.
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 67: Exley spieled: rat-offs on Brownell, Huff, Doherty.
1991		K.C. Kearns Dublin Street Life and Lore 131: I’m a spieler. We ‘spiel’ them. Spieling means to get out and actually do it differently than just standing there selling,... to give a speech, a good line of speech.
2001		‘Randy Everhard’ Tattoo of a Naked Lady 8: I pulled out an old key I kept for just such an occasion. Dangling it before his bug eyes, I spieled how it was the key to her room at some motel outside of town.
2012		(con. 1943) G.S. Manson Coorparoo Blues [ebook] ‘Spiel her some shit, grab the mun, and then try ya luck’.