I literally highlighted the term, right click, "Search Google For..." and hit image search just to make sure they were talking about a spire. So then I had the images I had seen on Google Image Search in my head.

You can infer what the steeple is, but it isn't an often used term for a spire around here.

Dig a little deeper - a steeple is different to a spire (and often has a spire on top).

In everyday conversation you can get away with using them largely interchangeably though, so don't worry too much about it.