The Collaborative International Dictionary
Spring \Spring\ (spr[i^]ng), v. i. [imp. Sprang (spr[a^]ng) or Sprung (spr[u^]ng); p. p. Sprung; p. pr. & vb. n. Springing.] [AS. springan; akin to D. & G. springen, OS. & OHG. springan, Icel. & Sw. springa, Dan. springe; cf. Gr. spe`rchesqai to hasten. Cf. Springe, Sprinkle.]
-
To leap; to bound; to jump.
The mountain stag that springs From height to height, and bounds along the plains.
--Philips. -
To issue with speed and violence; to move with activity; to dart; to shoot.
And sudden light Sprung through the vaulted roof.
--Dryden. -
To start or rise suddenly, as from a covert.
Watchful as fowlers when their game will spring.
--Otway. To fly back; as, a bow, when bent, springs back by its elastic power.
To bend from a straight direction or plane surface; to become warped; as, a piece of timber, or a plank, sometimes springs in seasoning.
-
To shoot up, out, or forth; to come to the light; to begin to appear; to emerge; as a plant from its seed, as streams from their source, and the like; -- often followed by up, forth, or out.
Till well nigh the day began to spring.
--Chaucer.To satisfy the desolate and waste ground, and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth.
--Job xxxviii. 2 -
Do not blast my springing hopes.
--Rowe.O, spring to light; auspicious Babe, be born.
--Pope.7. To issue or proceed, as from a parent or ancestor; to result, as from a cause, motive, reason, or principle.
[They found] new hope to spring Out of despair, joy, but with fear yet linked.
--Milton. -
To grow; to thrive; to prosper.
What makes all this, but Jupiter the king, At whose command we perish, and we spring?
--Dryden.To spring at, to leap toward; to attempt to reach by a leap.
To spring forth, to leap out; to rush out.
To spring in, to rush in; to enter with a leap or in haste.
To spring on or To spring upon, to leap on; to rush on with haste or violence; to assault.
Usage examples of "to spring forth".
Only now, when magic hummed within me, ready to spring forth, was the scar even visible.
At any moment she expected the stream of refugees to end, or Eika to spring forth, hacking right and left with their axes and deadly spears.
Sepulveda Boulevard seems to spring forth in the north end of the San Fernando Valley.
It seems as though, around these great centres of the movements of a people, the earth, full of germs, trembled and yawned, to engulf the ancient dwellings of men and to allow new ones to spring forth, at the rattle of these powerful machines, at the breath of these monstrous horses of civilization which devour coal and vomit fire.
It is no less skilful at causing a solution to spring forth from the reconciliation of ideas, than a lesson from the reconciliation of facts, and we may expect anything from that mysterious power of progress, which brought the Orient and the Occident face to face one fine day, in the depths of a sepulchre, and made the imaums converse with Bonaparte in the interior of the Great Pyramid.