Shpiel

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A protracted verbal presentation or story that seeks to persuade while often being dressed up with embellishments
2. An extended speech intended to convince an audience, typically with a fast or elaborate delivery
3. A drawn-out oral presentation designed to promote an idea or product, frequently involving exaggerated details

Etymology: The word "spiel" is a good example of a term that began as plain play and ended up describing a salesman's patter. Its core meaning, "game" or "performance," came into English through several routes at once: German "Spiel," Yiddish "shpil," and Scots "spiel," which in turn came from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German "spel." All trace back to the same ancient root that gave English the Old English verb "spilian," meaning "to revel" or "play," so the word is a cousin of "spill" and "speel" in the sense of climbing. That shared origin is why the word could carry such different senses. In Scots it kept the sense of a curling match or game, while in Yiddish and German it meant a performance or a show. English speakers borrowed the idea of a performance and then, over time, the performance grew more showy and persuasive. A "spiel" came to mean a rehearsed speech delivered to win someone over, usually a sales pitch.

Synonyms: tale, story, narrative, spiel, discourse