spring
/ˈspɹɪŋ/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.92 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
1
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "The boat sprang a leak and began to sink."
- "...þe wound þat was springand with huge stremes of blude..."
- "...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."
- "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; […]"
- "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."
- "Commerce! beneath whose poison-breathing shade No solitary virtue dares to spring, […]"
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 *sperǵʰ- (“to hurry”). 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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: springen, springan, *springan, *springaną, *spre(n)ǵʰ-, spryng
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈspɹɪŋ/
- British English: /ˈspɹɪŋ/
Usage
- Intransitive verb
- British usage
- Obsolete
- Transitive verb
- Australian usage
- Slang
- American usage
- Archaic
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Music.
Inflected Forms
springs (present, singular)
springing (participle, present)
sprang (past)
sprung (past)
sprung (participle, past)
no-table-tags (table tags)
glossary (inflection template)
sprang (first person, past)
sprung (first person, nonstandard)
sprang (past, second person)
sprung (nonstandard, past)
sprang (past, singular)
Derived Forms
outspring
overspring
respring
springel
springer
springing
upspring
afterspring
bedspring
Clearspring
clockspring
Coldspring
Phrases
hope springs eternal
spring a butt
spring a leak
spring an arch
spring at
spring for
spring forth
spring-hare