spring

English Online Dictionary. What means spring‎? What does spring mean?

English

Wikiquote

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) enPR: sprĭng, IPA^(key): /spɹɪŋ/
• Rhymes: -ɪŋ

Etymology 1

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”).

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.

Verb

spring (third-person singular simple present springs, present participle springing, simple past sprang or sprung, past participle sprung)

1. (intransitive) To move or burst forth.
   1. To appear.
   2. To grow, to sprout.
      1. (UK dialectal) To mature.
   3. (figurative) To arise, to come into existence.

      Synonyms: arise, form, take shape

   4. (sometimes figurative) To enliven.

   5. (figurative, usually with cardinal adverbs) To move with great speed and energy.

      Synonyms: bound, jump, leap

      • c. 1250, Life of St Margaret, Trin. Col. MS B.14.39 (323), f. 22v:

        ...into helle spring...
   6. (usually with from) To be born, descend, or originate from
   7. (obsolete) To rise in social position or military rank, to be promoted.
2. (transitive) To cause to spring (all senses).
   1. (of mechanisms) To cause to work or open by sudden application of pressure.
3. (transitive) To leap over.
4. (obsolete, of horses) To breed with, to impregnate.
5. (transitive, obsolete) To wet, to moisten.
6. (intransitive, now usually with "apart" or "open") To burst into pieces, to explode, to shatter.
7. (obsolete, military) To go off.
8. (ambitransitive, nautical, usually perfective) To crack.
   • 1582 August 2, Richard Madox, diary:

     The Edward sprang hir foremast.

9. To come upon and flush out.
10. (Australia, slang) To catch in an illegal act or compromising position.
11. (obsolete) To begin.
12. (obsolete, slang) To put bad money into circulation.
13. To tell, to share.
14. (transitive, slang, US) To free from imprisonment, especially by facilitating an illegal escape.

    Synonyms: free, let out, release, spring loose, jailbreak
15. (intransitive, slang, rare) To be free of imprisonment, especially by illegal escape.
16. (transitive, architecture, of arches) To build, to form the initial curve of.

17. (intransitive, architecture, of arches, with "from") To extend, to curve.

18. (transitive, nautical) To turn a vessel using a spring attached to its anchor cable.
19. (transitive) To pay or spend a certain sum, to yield.
20. (obsolete, intransitive, slang) To raise an offered price.
21. (transitive, US, dialectal) Alternative form of sprain.
22. (transitive, US, dialectal) Alternative form of strain.
23. (intransitive, obsolete) To act as a spring: to strongly rebound.
24. (transitive, rare) To equip with springs, especially (of vehicles) to equip with a suspension.
25. (figurative, rare, obsolete) to inspire, to motivate.
26. (ambitransitive) To deform owing to excessive pressure, to become warped; to intentionally deform in order to position and then straighten in place.

27. (intransitive, UK, dialectal, chiefly of cows) To swell with milk or pregnancy.
28. (transitive, of rattles, archaic) To sound, to play.
29. (of animals) To find or get enough food during springtime.

Usage notes

• The past-tense forms sprang and sprung are both well attested historically. In modern usage, sprang is comparatively formal (and more often considered correct), sprung comparatively informal. The past participle, however, is overwhelmingly sprung; sprang as a past participle is attested, but is no longer in standard use.

Conjugation

Synonyms

• (come into being): see also Thesaurus:come into being

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English spryng (“a wellspring, tide, branch, sunrise, kind of dance or blow, ulcer, snare, flock”); partly from Old English spring (“wellspring, ulcer”), from Proto-West Germanic *spring, from Proto-Germanic *springaz (“a wellspring, fount”); and partly from Old English spryng (“a jump”), from Proto-West Germanic *sprungi, from Proto-Germanic *sprungiz (“a jump”). Further senses derived from the verb and from clippings of day-spring, springtime, spring tide, etc. Its sense as the season, first attested in a work predating 1325, gradually replaced Middle English lente, lentin, from Old English lencten (“spring, Lent”) as that word became more specifically liturgical. Compare fall.

Noun

spring (countable and uncountable, plural springs)

1. (countable) An act of springing: a leap, a jump.
3. (countable, uncountable) The season of the year in temperate regions in which temperatures and daylight hours rise, and plants spring from the ground and into bloom and dormant animals spring to life.

   Synonym: springtime

   Coordinate terms: summer, autumn or fall, winter

   1. (astronomy) The period from the moment of vernal equinox (around March 21 in the Northern Hemisphere) to the moment of the summer solstice (around June 21); the equivalent periods reckoned in other cultures and calendars.

   2. (meteorology) The three months of March, April, and May in the Northern Hemisphere and September, October, and November in the Southern Hemisphere.

4. (uncountable, figurative) The time of something's growth; the early stages of some process.
   1. (figurative, politics) a period of political liberalization and democratization

5. (countable, fashion) Someone with ivory or peach skin tone and eyes and hair that are not extremely dark, seen as best suited to certain colors of clothing.
6. (countable) Something which springs, springs forth, springs up, or springs back, particularly
   2. (geology) A spray or body of water springing from the ground.

      Synonyms: fount, source

   3. (oceanography, obsolete) The rising of the sea at high tide.
   4. (oceanography) Short for spring tide, the especially high tide shortly after full and new moons.

      Antonym: neap tide

   5. A mechanical device made of flexible or coiled material that exerts force and attempts to spring back when bent, compressed, or stretched.

      Synonym: coil

   6. (nautical) A line from a vessel's end or side to its anchor cable used to diminish or control its movement.
   7. (nautical) A line laid out from a vessel's end to the opposite end of an adjacent vessel or mooring to diminish or control its movement.
   8. (figurative) A race, a lineage.
   9. (figurative) A youth.
   10. A shoot, a young tree.
   11. A grove of trees; a forest.
7. (countable, slang) An erection of the penis. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
8. (countable, nautical, obsolete) A crack which has sprung up in a mast, spar, or (rare) a plank or seam.
9. (uncountable) Springiness: an attribute or quality of springing, springing up, or springing back, particularly
   1. Elasticity: the property of a body springing back to its original form after compression, stretching, etc.

      Synonyms: bounce, bounciness, elasticity, resilience, springiness

   2. Elastic energy, power, or force.
      • 1697, John Dryden, Virgil's Aeneis, Bk. xi, ll. 437–8:

        Heav'ns what a spring was in his Arm, to throw:
        How high he held his Shield, and rose at ev'ry blow!
10. (countable) The source from which an action or supply of something springs.

    Synonyms: impetus, impulse
11. (countable) Something which causes others or another to spring forth or spring into action, particularly
    1. A cause, a motive, etc.
    2. (obsolete) A lively piece of music.

Usage notes

Note that season names are not capitalized in modern English except where any noun would be capitalized, e.g. at the beginning of a sentence or as part of a name (Old Man Winter, the Winter War, Summer Glau). This is in contrast to the days of the week and months of the year, which are always capitalized (Thursday or September).

Synonyms

• (time of growth, early stages): See Thesaurus:beginning

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Verb

spring (third-person singular simple present springs, present participle springing, simple past and past participle springed)

2. (intransitive) To spend the springtime somewhere.

Translations

See also

• geyser
• Hooke's law
• seep
• Slinky
• vernal
• well

References

• “spring, n¹.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
• “spring, n².”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
• “spring, n³.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
• “spring, v¹.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
• “spring, v².”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
• “spring, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2018.
• “springen, v.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2018.

Afrikaans

Etymology

From Dutch springen.

Pronunciation

Verb

spring (present spring, present participle springende, past participle gespring)

1. to leap, jump

Derived terms

• springbok

Danish

Etymology

Verbal noun to springe.

Noun

spring n (singular definite springet, plural indefinite spring)

1. (athletics, gymnastics) spring, jump, vault, leap

Declension

Related terms

Verb

spring

1. imperative of springe

Dutch

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sprɪŋ/
• Rhymes: -ɪŋ

Verb

spring

1. inflection of springen:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. (in case of inversion) second-person singular present indicative
   3. imperative

German

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʃpʁɪŋ/

Verb

spring

1. singular imperative of springen
2. (colloquial) first-person singular present of springen

Icelandic

Verb

spring

1. inflection of springa:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. second-person singular imperative

Middle English

Etymology 1

Noun

spring

1. Alternative form of spryng

Etymology 2

Verb

spring

1. Alternative form of spryngen

North Frisian

Alternative forms

• spränge (Mooring)

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *springaną.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [sprɪŋ]

Verb

spring

1. (Föhr-Amrum, Sylt) to jump, leap

Conjugation

Norwegian Bokmål

Verb

spring

1. imperative of springe

Norwegian Nynorsk

Verb

spring

1. present of springa

Old English

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *spring, from Proto-Germanic *springaz

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sprinɡ/, [spriŋɡ]

Noun

spring m

1. a spring (source of water)
2. an ulcer, sore, pustule

Declension

Strong a-stem:

Derived terms

• ǣspring
• wiellspring

Descendants

• Middle English: spryng, spring, springe, sprung, sprynge
  • English: spring
  • Scots: spring

Scots

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [sprɪŋ]

Noun

spring (plural springs)

1. spring, springtime
2. growth of vegetation in springtime

Verb

tae spring (third-person singular simple present springs, present participle springin, simple past sprang, past participle sprung)

1. to spring
2. to leap over, cross at a bound
3. to put forth, send up or out
4. to burst, split, break apart, break into
5. to dance a reel

Swedish

Noun

spring n

1. a running (back and forth)
   • 1918, Goss-skolan i Plumfield, the Swedish translation of Louisa M. Alcott, Little Men: Life at Plumfield with Jo's Boys (1871)

Declension

Verb

spring

1. imperative of springa

References

• spring in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• spring in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• spring in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)