spring.
To move or burst forth.
Meaning & usage
To move or burst forth.
The boat sprang a leak and began to sink.
To move or burst forth. To appear.
To move or burst forth. To grow, to sprout.
To move or burst forth. To grow, to sprout. To mature.
To move or burst forth. To arise, to come into existence.
To move or burst forth. To enliven.
He hit the gas and the car sprang to life.
To move or burst forth. To move with great speed and energy.
Deer spring with their hind legs, using their front hooves to steady themselves.
To move or burst forth. To be born, descend, or originate from
He sprang from peasant stock.
To move or burst forth. To rise in social position or military rank, to be promoted.
To cause to spring (all senses).
To cause to spring (all senses). To cause to work or open by sudden application of pressure.
He sprang the trap.
To leap over.
To breed with, to impregnate.
To wet, to moisten.
To burst into pieces, to explode, to shatter.
To go off.
To crack.
To come upon and flush out.
To catch in an illegal act or compromising position.
To begin.
To put bad money into circulation.
To tell, to share.
Sorry to spring it on you like this but I've been offered another job.
To free from imprisonment, especially by facilitating an illegal escape.
His lieutenants hired a team of miners to help spring him.
To be free of imprisonment, especially by illegal escape.
To secure a person's release from custody; to free or bail out of jail.
To build, to form the initial curve of.
They sprung an arch over the lintel.
To extend, to curve.
The arches spring from the front posts.
To turn a vessel using a spring attached to its anchor cable.
To pay or spend a certain sum, to yield.
To raise an offered price.
Alternative form of sprain.
Alternative form of strain.
To act as a spring: to strongly rebound.
To equip with springs, especially (of vehicles) to equip with a suspension.
to inspire, to motivate.
To deform owing to excessive pressure, to become warped; to intentionally deform in order to position and then straighten in place.
A piece of timber sometimes springs in seasoning.
He sprang in the slat.
To swell with milk or pregnancy.
To sound, to play.
To find or get enough food during springtime.
Where this word comes from
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 *sperǵʰ- (“to hurry”). Cognates * Saterland Frisian springe * West Frisian springe * Dutch springen * German Low German springen * German springen * Danish springe * Swedish springa * Norwegian springe * Faroese springa * Icelandic springa (“to burst, explode”). 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.
An act of springing: a leap, a jump.
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.
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. 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.
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. 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.
The time of something's growth; the early stages of some process.
The time of something's growth; the early stages of some process. A period of political liberalization and democratization.
Arab Spring
Prague Spring
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.
Something which springs, springs forth, springs up, or springs back, particularly A spray or body of water springing from the ground.
This beer was brewed with pure spring water.
Something which springs, springs forth, springs up, or springs back, particularly The rising of the sea at high tide.
Something which springs, springs forth, springs up, or springs back, particularly Ellipsis of spring tide, the especially high tide shortly after full and new moons.
Something which springs, springs forth, springs up, or springs back, particularly 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.
Something which springs, springs forth, springs up, or springs back, particularly A line from a vessel's end or side to its anchor cable used to diminish or control its movement.
Something which springs, springs forth, springs up, or springs back, particularly 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.
Something which springs, springs forth, springs up, or springs back, particularly A race, a lineage.
Something which springs, springs forth, springs up, or springs back, particularly A youth.
Something which springs, springs forth, springs up, or springs back, particularly A shoot, a young tree.
Something which springs, springs forth, springs up, or springs back, particularly A grove of trees; a forest.
Something which springs, springs forth, springs up, or springs back, particularly A group of teal.
An erection of the penis.
A crack which has sprung up in a mast, spar, or (rare) a plank or seam.
Springiness: an attribute or quality of springing, springing up, or springing back, particularly Elasticity: the property of a body springing back to its original form after compression, stretching, etc.
the spring of a bow
Springiness: an attribute or quality of springing, springing up, or springing back, particularly Elastic energy, power, or force.
The source from which an action or supply of something springs.
Something which causes others or another to spring forth or spring into action, particularly A cause, a motive, etc.
Something which causes others or another to spring forth or spring into action, particularly A lively piece of music.
Where this word comes from
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 lenten, lente, from Old English lencten (“spring, Lent”) as that word became more specifically liturgical. Compare fall.
To spend the springtime somewhere.
Where this word comes from
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 lenten, lente, from Old English lencten (“spring, Lent”) as that word became more specifically liturgical. Compare fall.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.