spring
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: sprĭng
ipa: /spɹɪŋ/
rhymes: -ɪŋ
Forms: form: springs
form: springing
form: sprang
form: sprung
form: sprung
form: no-table-tags
form: glossary
form: spring
form: spring
form: sprang
form: sprung
form: spring
form: sprang
form: sprung
form: springs
form: sprang
form: sprung
form: spring
form: sprang
form: sprung
form: spring
form: sprang
form: sprung
form: spring
form: -
form: springing
form: sprung
form: sprang
Etymology: From Middle English springen, from Old English springan (“to spring, leap, bounce, sprout forth, emerge, spread out”), from Proto-West Germanic *springan, from Proto-Germanic *springaną (“to burst forth”), from Proto-Indo-European *spre(n)ǵʰ- (“to move, race, spring”), from *sper- (“to jerk, twitch, snap, shove”).
Cognates
* Saterland Frisian springe
* West Frisian springe
* Dutch springen
* German Low German springen
* German springen
* Danish springe
* Swedish springa
* Norwegian springe
* Faroese springa
* Icelandic springa (“to burst, explode”).
Other possible cognates include Lithuanian spreñgti (“to push (in)”), Old Church Slavonic прѧсти (pręsti, “to spin, to stretch”), Latin spargere (“to sprinkle, to scatter”), Ancient Greek σπέρχω (spérkhō, “to hasten”), Sanskrit स्पृहयति (spṛháyati, “to be eager”). Some newer senses derived from the noun.
Senses: examples: text: The boat sprang a leak and began to sink.
text: ...þe wound þat was springand with huge stremes of blude...
ref: c. 1540, Livy, translated by John Bellenden, History of Rome, Vol. I, i, xxii, p. 125:
glosses: To move or burst forth.
examples: text: ...so the man tooke his concubine, and brought her foorth vnto them, and they knew her, and abused her all the night vntil the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her goe.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Judges 19:25:
text: Home I would go,
 But that my Dores are hatefull to my eyes.
 Fill'd and damm'd up with gaping Creditors,
 Watchfull as Fowlers when their Game will ſpring; […]
ref: 1682, Thomas Otway, Venice Preserv’d, or, A Plot Discover’d. A Tragedy. […], London: […] Jos[eph] Hindmarsh […], →OCLC, Act I, scene i, page 4:
glosses: To move or burst forth.
To appear.
examples: text: Who hath diuided a water-course for the ouerflowing of waters? or a way for the lightning of thunder,
To cause it to raine on the earth, where no man is: on the wildernesse wherein there is no man?
To satisfie the desolate and waste ground, and to cause the bud of the tender herbe to spring forth.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Job 38:25–27:
text: Commerce! beneath whose poison-breathing shade
 No solitary virtue dares to spring, […]
ref: 1813, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Canto V”, in Queen Mab; […], London: […] P. B. Shelley, […], →OCLC, page 61:
text: Dr. Sigmund Freud... says that everything you and I do springs from two motives: the sex urge and the desire to be great.
ref: 1936, Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People, page 42:
text: There was moisture in the ground, and from it sprang a million flowers, gold and blue and brown and red.
ref: 1974, James Albert Michener, Centennial, page 338:
text: Foxglove sprang tall and purple among the trees.
ref: 2006, N. Roberts, Morrigann's Cross, section VI:
glosses: To move or burst forth.
To grow, to sprout.
glosses: To move or burst forth.
To grow, to sprout.
To mature.
glosses: To move or burst forth.
To arise, to come into existence.
synonyms: arise
form
take shape
examples: text: He hit the gas and the car sprang to life.
glosses: To move or burst forth.
To enliven.
examples: text: Deer spring with their hind legs, using their front hooves to steady themselves.
text: ...into helle spring...
ref: c. 1250, Life of St Margaret, Trin. Col. MS B.14.39 (323), f. 22v
text: Ye kynge... sprange out of his chare and resseyuyd them worshipfully.
ref: 1474, William Caxton, transl., Game and Playe of the Chesse, iii, vii, 141:
text: ...the Mountain Stag, that springs
From Height to Height, and bounds along the Plains,
Nor has a Master to restrain his Course...
ref: 1722, Ambrose Philips, The Briton:
text: ...out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
ref: 1827, Clement Clarke Moore, (A Visit from St. Nicholas):
text: However, with the dainty volume my quondam friend sprang into fame. At the same time he cast off the chrysalis of a commonplace existence.
ref: 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
text: Thus she advanced; her belly low, almost touching the surface of the ground—a great cat preparing to spring upon its prey.
ref: 1912, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter 5, in Tarzan of the Apes:
text: Reporters sprang to the conclusion that the speech would make detailed new commitments...
ref: 2011 April 11, The Atlantic:
glosses: To move or burst forth.
To move with great speed and energy.
synonyms: bound
jump
leap
raw_tags: with cardinal adverbs
examples: text: He sprang from peasant stock.
text: From this basis, a first-order difference equation for the evolution of capital per worker is found, and the time path of the economy springs from this equation.
ref: 2008, George McCandless, The ABCs of RBCs, Harvard University Press, page 7:
glosses: To move or burst forth.
To be born, descend, or originate from
raw_tags: with from
glosses: To move or burst forth.
To rise in social position or military rank, to be promoted.
glosses: To cause to spring (all senses).
examples: text: He sprang the trap.
text: They sprung another Mine... wherein was placed about sixtie Barrels of Powder.
ref: 1625, Samuel Purchas, Purchas His Pilgrimes, Vol. II, x, ix:
text: On the 23d, the Besiegers sprung a Mine under the Salient Angle, upon the Right of the Haif Moon, which had the desired Success, the Enemy's Gallery on that Side, and the Mason-Work of the Counterscarp, being thereby demolished.
ref: 1747, The London Magazine, Or, Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer:
glosses: To cause to spring (all senses).
To cause to work or open by sudden application of pressure.
raw_tags: of mechanisms
examples: text: I sprang the fence, and was soon in the village street.
ref: 1876, Matilda Leathes, Our village worthies; or, Stories of village life, page 112:
glosses: To leap over.
examples: text: ...[they] sought the fairest stoned horses to spring their mares...
ref: 1585, Nicolas De Nicolay, translated by Thomas Washington, The Navigations, Peregrinations, and Voyages, Made into Turkie..., Bk. IV, p. 154:
glosses: To breed with, to impregnate.
raw_tags: of horses
glosses: To wet, to moisten.
examples: text: On the 22nd the mines sprang, and took very good effect.
ref: 1698, François Froger, A Relation of a Voyage Made... on the Coasts of Africa, page 30:
glosses: To burst into pieces, to explode, to shatter.
raw_tags: with "apart" or "open"
examples: text: The whole contraption appears liable to spring apart at any moment.
ref: 2012 April 21, Sydney Morning Herald, page 5:
topics: government
military
politics
war
glosses: To go off.
examples: text: The Edward sprang hir foremast.
ref: 1582 August 2, Richard Madox, diary
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: To crack.
examples: text: For generations of men the springer spaniel has been looked upon as the dog for springing pheasants in covert and finding and retrieving dead birds or winged runners when ordered to do so. The properly broken dog will not chase, but drop to wing and shot.
ref: 1921, Field and Stream, page 832:
text: […] by the beginning of this century a still smaller breed, with a weight of 4 of 5 pounds and a chest measurement of around 12 inches, had come into being for springing rabbits. Such, then, is a rough, quick ancestral picture of our modern Dachshund, and[…]
ref: 1940, Allen A. Day, “Dachsunds for Woodchucks”, in Dwight Williams Huntington, editor, The Game Breeder and Sportsman, page 94:
text: I winter, ruffed grouse sometimes roost at night on the ground under the insulating snow. Even during the midday hours, I have often flushed grouse out from under the snow-bowed branches of "buck-brush," the type of environment where a hunter would more likely expect to spring a rabbit or two.
ref: 2003 August 1, Dennis Walrod, Grouse Hunter's Guide: Solid Facts, Insights, and Observations on How to Hunt Ruffled Grouse, Stackpole Books, →ISBN:
glosses: To come upon and flush out.
examples: text: He figured that nobody would ever spring him, but he figured wrong.
ref: 1980, John Hepworth et al., Boozing Out in Melbourne Pubs..., page 42:
glosses: To catch in an illegal act or compromising position.
glosses: To begin.
glosses: To put bad money into circulation.
examples: text: Sorry to spring it on you like this but I've been offered another job.
text: North Korea loves to spring surprises. More unusual is for its US foe to play along.
ref: 2012 February 29, Aidan Foster-Carter, “North Korea: The Denuclearisation Dance Resumes”, in BBC News:
glosses: To tell, to share.
examples: text: His lieutenants hired a team of miners to help spring him.
text: If I was in jail I know you'd spring me
ref: 2007, Mike Batt, “If You Were a Sailboat”, performed by Katie Melua:
synonyms: free
let out
release
spring loose
jailbreak
glosses: To free from imprisonment, especially by facilitating an illegal escape.
glosses: To be free of imprisonment, especially by illegal escape.
examples: text: They sprung an arch over the lintel.
topics: architecture
glosses: To build, to form the initial curve of.
raw_tags: of arches
examples: text: The arches spring from the front posts.
topics: architecture
glosses: To extend, to curve.
raw_tags: of arches
with "from"
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: To turn a vessel using a spring attached to its anchor cable.
examples: text: He wouldn't spring a nickel for a bag of peanuts.
ref: 1957, Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, Over Seventy, page 137:
glosses: To pay or spend a certain sum, to yield.
glosses: To raise an offered price.
glosses: Alternative form of sprain.
glosses: Alternative form of strain.
glosses: To act as a spring: to strongly rebound.
glosses: To equip with springs, especially (of vehicles) to equip with a suspension.
glosses: to inspire, to motivate.
examples: text: Don't drive it in too hard, as it will ‘spring’ the plane-iron, and make it concave.
ref: 1873 July, Routledge's Young Gentleman's Magazine, page 503:
text: A piece of timber sometimes springs in seasoning.
text: He sprang in the slat.
glosses: To deform owing to excessive pressure, to become warped; to intentionally deform in order to position and then straighten in place.
examples: text: “Gee, Dad, Nancy’s springing all right,” Ray said and paused in spontaneous pleasure.
Stan Parker came, and together they looked at their swelling heifer.
ref: 1955, Patrick White, chapter 15, in The Tree of Man, New York: Viking, page 228:
glosses: To swell with milk or pregnancy.
raw_tags: of cows
examples: text: I do not know how John and his mistress would have settled the fate of the thief, but just at this moment a policeman entered — for the cook had sprung the rattle, and had been screaming "Murder" and "Thieves."
ref: 1850, Samuel Prout Newcombe, Pleasant pages, page 197:
glosses: To sound, to play.
raw_tags: of rattles
glosses: To find or get enough food during springtime.
raw_tags: of animals
Synonyms: sense: come into being
word: come into being
Derived terms: hope springs eternal
outspring
overspring
respring
spring a butt
spring a leak
spring an arch
spring at
springel
springer
spring for
spring forth
spring-hare
spring has sprung
spring in
springing
spring into action
spring-jack
spring-lobster
spring loose
spring on
spring out
spring the luff
spring to life
spring to mind
spring to somebody's defence
spring-tree
spring up
sprung rhyme
upspring
Related terms: sprang
springwort
sprung
to-spring
unspring