spring

Verb (1)

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.
   • The boat sprang a leak and began to sink.
   • ...þe wound þat was springand with huge stremes of blude...c. 1540, Livy, translated by John Bellenden, History of Rome, Vol. I, i, xxii, p. 125
   1. (intransitive) To appear.
      • ...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.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Judges 19:25
      • 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; […]1682, Thomas Otway, Venice Preserv’d, or, A Plot Discover’d. A Tragedy. […], London: […] Jos[eph] Hindmarsh […], →OCLC, Act I, scene i, page 4
   2. (intransitive) To grow, to sprout.
      • 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.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Job 38:25–27
      • Commerce! beneath whose poison-breathing shade
        No solitary virtue dares to spring, […]1813, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Canto V”, in Queen Mab; […], London: […] P. B. Shelley, […], →OCLC, page 61
   3. (UK, dialectal, intransitive) To mature.
   4. (figuratively, intransitive) To arise, to come into existence.
   5. (figuratively, intransitive, sometimes) To enliven.
      • He hit the gas and the car sprang to life.
   6. (figuratively, intransitive, usually) To move with great speed and energy.
      • Deer spring with their hind legs, using their front hooves to steady themselves.
      • ...into helle spring...c. 1250, Life of St Margaret, Trin. Col. MS B.14.39 (323), f. 22v
   7. (intransitive, usually) To be born, descend, or originate from
      • He sprang from peasant stock.
      • 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.2008, George McCandless, The ABCs of RBCs, Harvard University Press, page 7
   8. (intransitive, obsolete) To rise in social position or military rank, to be promoted.
2. (transitive) To cause to spring (all senses).
   1. (transitive) To cause to work or open by sudden application of pressure.
      • He sprang the trap.
      • They sprung another Mine... wherein was placed about sixtie Barrels of Powder.1625, Samuel Purchas, Purchas His Pilgrimes, Vol. II, x, ix
3. (transitive) To leap over.
   • I sprang the fence, and was soon in the village street.1876, Matilda Leathes, Our village worthies; or, Stories of village life, page 112
4. (obsolete) To breed with, to impregnate.
   • ...[they] sought the fairest stoned horses to spring their mares...1585, Nicolas De Nicolay, translated by Thomas Washington, The Navigations, Peregrinations, and Voyages, Made into Turkie..., Bk. IV, p. 154
5. (obsolete, transitive) To wet, to moisten.
6. (intransitive, usually) To burst into pieces, to explode, to shatter.
   • On the 22nd the mines sprang, and took very good effect.1698, François Froger, A Relation of a Voyage Made... on the Coasts of Africa, page 30
7. (obsolete) To go off.
   • The whole contraption appears liable to spring apart at any moment.2012 April 21, Sydney Morning Herald, page 5
8. (ambitransitive, perfective, usually) To crack.
   • The Edward sprang hir foremast.1582 August 2, Richard Madox, diary
9. To come upon and flush out.
   • 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.1921, Field and Stream, page 832
   • […] 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[…]1940, Allen A. Day, “Dachsunds for Woodchucks”, in Dwight Williams Huntington, editor, The Game Breeder and Sportsman, page 94
10. (Australia, slang) To catch in an illegal act or compromising position.
    • He figured that nobody would ever spring him, but he figured wrong.1980, John Hepworth et al., Boozing Out in Melbourne Pubs..., page 42
11. (obsolete) To begin.
12. (obsolete, slang) To put bad money into circulation.

Noun

spring (countable and uncountable, plural springs)

1. (countable) An act of springing: a leap, a jump.
   • The pris'ner with a spring from prison broke;
     Then stretch'd his feather'd fans with all his might,
     And to the neighb'ring maple wing'd his flight.1700, John Dryden, The Cock and the Fox
2. 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.
   • Spring is the time of the year most species reproduce.
   • You can visit me in the spring, when the weather is bearable.

   Synonyms:

   springtime

   1. 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.
      • Chinese New Year always occurs in January or February but is called the "Spring Festival" throughout East Asia because it is reckoned as the beginning of their spring.
   2. The three months of March, April, and May in the Northern Hemisphere and September, October, and November in the Southern Hemisphere.
      • I spent my spring holidays in Morocco.
      • The spring issue will be out next week.
3. (figuratively, uncountable) The time of something's growth; the early stages of some process.
   • ...and it came to passe about the spring of the day, that Samuel called Saul to the top of the house...1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Samuel 9:26
   • O how this spring of love resembleth
     The uncertain glory of an April day.c. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
   1. (figuratively) A period of political liberalization and democratization.
      • Arab Spring
      • Prague Spring
4. (countable) 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.
5. A spray or body of water springing from the ground.
   • This beer was brewed with pure spring water.

   Synonyms:

   fount, source

6. (obsolete) The rising of the sea at high tide.
7. An elastic mechanical part or device in any shape (e.g., flat, curved, coiled), made of flexible material (usually spring steel) that exerts force and attempts to spring back when bent, compressed, or stretched.
   • We jumped so hard the bed springs broke.
8. A line from a vessel's end or side to its anchor cable used to diminish or control its movement.
   • He had warped round with the springs on his cable, and had recommenced his fire upon the Aurora.1836, Frederick Marryat, Mr. Midshipman Easy, volume III, page 72
9. 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.
   • You should put a couple of springs onto the jetty to stop the boat moving so much.
   • Spring is likewise a rope reaching diagonally from the stern of a ship to the head of another which lies along-side or a-breast of her.1769, William Falconer, An Universal Dictionary of the Marine, s.v
10. (figuratively) A race, a lineage.
11. (figuratively) A youth.
12. A shoot, a young tree.

Verb (2)

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

1. (intransitive) To spend the springtime somewhere.
   • True it is that, owing to the migratory propensities of our countrymen, every third man has wintered at Naples, springed at Vienna, summered in Switzerland, and autumned on the banks of the Lago Maggiore;1835 May, “Northern Germany. A Sketch.”, in Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country, volume XI, number LXV, page 507
   • If Tad’s father and Tad had wintered, springed, summered, and autumned together for an hundred years instead of fifteen they could[…]1912, William C[yrus] Sprague, Tad, the Story of a Boy who Had No Chance, page 2

Proper noun capitalized: Spring

IPA/spɹɪŋ/

Spring (countable and uncountable, plural Springs)

1. (countable) A surname.
2. A census-designated place in Harris County, Texas, United States.
3. (alternative) Alternative form of spring, the season of warmth and new vegetation following winter.
   • There the roſy-finger'd Spring, by the liquid mirror of a cryſtalline pool, was attiring her fair daughters in ſeven-fold ornaments, while the love-whiſpering breezes ſtole kiſſes as they paſſed, and fanned their glowing beauties.1769, Firishta, translated by Alexander Dow, Tales translated from the Persian of Inatulla of Delhi, volume I, Dublin: P. and W. Wilson et al., page iii
   • [T]he Regent’s park was full of winter chirruppings and sweet with Spring odours.1886 January 5, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case”, in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, page 131