spring

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   spring back

   spring away from an impact

2. 2
   noun

   a metal elastic device that returns to its shape or position when pushed or pulled or pressed

   the spring was broken

3. 3
   noun

   the season of growth

   the emerging buds were a sure sign of spring

4. 4
   verb

   To move or burst forth.

   The boat sprang a leak and began to sink.

5. 5
   verb

   To leap over.

   I sprang the fence, and was soon in the village street.

6. 6
   verb

   To breed with, to impregnate.

   ...[they] sought the fairest stoned horses to spring their mares...

7. 7
   verb

   To burst into pieces, to explode, to shatter.

   On the 22nd the mines sprang, and took very good effect.

8. 8
   verb

   To go off.

   The whole contraption appears liable to spring apart at any moment.

Etymology

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…