sprout.
THE SHORT MEANINGA new shoot; to begin growing.
NatureMeaning & usage
A new growth of or on a plant, whether from seed or other parts.
A germinated seed, an incipient young plant.
A germinated seed, an incipient young plant. An edible variety of such, grown and intended as food; examples include bean, alfalfa, kale, and others.
A germinated seed, an incipient young plant. An edible variety of such, grown and intended as food; examples include bean, alfalfa, kale, and others. A bean sprout.
A child.
Oh my, how your sprouts have grown!
A Brussels sprout.
In our family we only eat sprouts once a year, at Christmas.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English sproute, either from Middle English sprouten (“to sprout”) (see below); or from Middle Dutch sprute or Middle Low German sprûte (“sprout”), all related to Proto-West Germanic *spreutan. Doublet of spruit.
To grow from seed; to germinate.
The crocuses should be sprouting after 2 months, provided they're well tended.
To cause to grow from a seed.
I sprouted beans and radishes and put them in my salad.
To deprive of sprouts.
to sprout potatoes
To emerge from the ground as sprouts.
To emerge haphazardly from a surface.
Whiskers sprouted from the old man's chin.
To emerge or appear haphazardly.
A lot of coffee shops have sprouted up in this neighbourhood since the block of flats was put up.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English sprouten, spruten, from Old English sprūtan, from Proto-West Germanic *spreutan, from Proto-Germanic *spreutaną.
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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.
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Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.