Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

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Spira

（σπεῖρα), dim. spirŭla.

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1.

The base of a column, a member not existing in the Doric order,

Spirae of Two Columns. (Left-hand figure from the Temple of Panops [Ionic] on the Ilissus; right-hand figure from the Temple of Athené Polias at Athens.)

but always present in the Ionic and Corinthian. A special kind of base was called the Attic (Ἀττικουργές), it being really a variety of the Ionic.

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2.

A kind of cracker or cake made in a spiral form, like a sort of cruller (Cato , R. R. 77).