Spilt was once the standard past tense and past participle form of the verb spill, but in modern English the word has mostly given way to spilled in all its uses. The old form does survive, though, especially outside North America, where spilt appears about a third as often as spilled. Where spilt survives, there is no consistent rule governing when to use it and when to use spilled. They are interchangeable.





Ngrams

This ngram graphs the use of spilled and spilt in English-language texts published from 1800 to 2000. It shows the switch from spilt to spilled occurring around 1900.

But when we narrow the focus to British English, the switch occurs later:






Examples

North America