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Sprit

//spɹɪt// noun, verb

Definitions

Noun

1
A spar between mast and upper outer corner of a spritsail on sailing boats.
"... and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits."
2
a light spar that crosses a fore-and-aft sail diagonally wordnet
3
A shoot; a sprout.
"the Maltſter will ſtir his Barley Couches till the Sprit begins to fork , five or ſix times a day or more ; it being always his Care to keep them from drying too much on the outſides"

Verb

1
To sprout; to bud; to germinate, as barley steeped for malt.
2
To throw out with force from a narrow orifice; to eject; to spurt out.

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English sprete, from Old English sprēot (“pole, pike, spear”), from Proto-Germanic *spreut, related to Proto-West Germanic *sprutō (“shoot, sprout”). Cognate with West Frisian spriet (“sprit, spoke”), Dutch spriet (“a sprit, blade, spar, shoot, sprig”), Middle High German spriez (“sprout, twig”).

Etymology 2

Variant of spurt, spirt (“to sprout, burst”).

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