Word.ws English Dictionary

sprunt

/spɹʌnt/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Northern England/spɹʊnt/

sprunt verb: to make quick or convulsive movements; to start, to jump.

Verb

sprunt (third-person singular simple present sprunts, present participle sprunting, simple past and past participle sprunted)

  1. (obsolete, regional) To make quick or convulsive movements; to start, to jump.
    • They acted a Tragedy at Padua when I was there last June 1786 I think: the Actors struggled & bounced, and sprunted as if in Convulsions […].1786 August 16, Hester Thrale Piozzi, Thraliana
  2. (Scotland, archaic, intransitive) To court, flirt, or make romantic advances; esp. after dusk and under the cover of darkness, sometimes among haystacks.
    • To a laft amang some hay; Like others i' the splunting way.1823, Kennedy, James, Poems and Songs
    • Sprunt, to run among the stacks after the girls at night.1825, Jamieson, J., Etymological Dictionary of Scottish Language Suppl.
    1. (Scotland, archaic, intransitive) To seek to gain the affections of a person.

Noun

sprunt (plural sprunts)

  1. (obsolete) A sudden movement; a leap or jump.
  2. (obsolete) Something bouncy or perky.
  3. A steep road, hill, or incline.
    • “Lang slaunting sprunts,” tall sloping hills or “land-spurs”1788, Marshall, Rural Economy of Yorkshire, page 695

Adjective

sprunt (comparative more sprunt, superlative most sprunt)

  1. (obsolete) Active; lively; vigorous.
    • As for that little sprunt piece of the Brain which they call the Conarion...1662, Henry More, An Antidote Against Atheism, Book I, A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More, p. 35
  2. Steep or sharp in ascent.
    • Ya’ll mannish ti trunn’l yersen t’best hauf o’ t’way, bud efter that ya’ll finnd it a bit sprunt [said to a cyclist]. (You’ll manage to trundle yourself for the better half of the way, but after that, you’ll find it a bit sprunt.)1896, Wright, Joseph, The English Dialect Dictionary: R-S, page 695

Forms of sprunt

Verb
third-person singular presentsprunts
present participlesprunting
past participlesprunted
pastsprunted
alternative formsplunt
Noun
pluralsprunts
Adjective
comparativemore sprunt
superlativemost sprunt

Origin of sprunt

Apparently a variation of sprent or sprint. This term originated as a Victorian-era Scots word in the Roxburgh region.

Words formed from sprunt

Words that rhyme with sprunt

11 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about sprunt

What does sprunt mean?
Sprunt means to make quick or convulsive movements; to start, to jump.
What part of speech is sprunt?
Sprunt can be a verb, a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce sprunt?
Sprunt is pronounced /spɹʌnt/.
What is the past tense of sprunt?
The past tense of sprunt is sprunted.

Words near sprunt in the dictionary

  1. sprungest
  2. sprunk
  3. sprunks
  4. sprunnies
  5. sprunny
  6. sprunt
  7. sprunt up
  8. sprunted
  9. sprunted up
  10. sprunting
  11. sprunting up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sprunt (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “sprunt.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sprunt. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.