The Collaborative International Dictionary
Spring \Spring\ (spr[i^]ng), v. t.
To cause to spring up; to start or rouse, as game; to cause to rise from the earth, or from a covert; as, to spring a pheasant.
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To produce or disclose suddenly or unexpectedly; as, to spring a surprise on someone; to spring a joke.
She starts, and leaves her bed, and springs a light.
--Dryden.The friends to the cause sprang a new project.
--Swift. To cause to explode; as, to spring a mine.
To crack or split; to bend or strain so as to weaken; as, to spring a mast or a yard.
To cause to close suddenly, as the parts of a trap operated by a spring; as, to spring a trap.
To bend by force, as something stiff or strong; to force or put by bending, as a beam into its sockets, and allowing it to straighten when in place; -- often with in, out, etc.; as, to spring in a slat or a bar.
To pass over by leaping; as, to spring a fence.
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To release (a person) from confinement, especially from a prison. [colloquial]
To spring a butt (Naut.), to loosen the end of a plank in a ship's bottom.
To spring a leak (Naut.), to begin to leak.
To spring an arch (Arch.), to build an arch; -- a common term among masons; as, to spring an arch over a lintel.
To spring a rattle, to cause a rattle to sound. See Watchman's rattle, under Watchman.
To spring the luff (Naut.), to ease the helm, and sail nearer to the wind than before; -- said of a vessel.
--Mar. Dict.To spring a mast or To spring a spar (Naut.), to strain it so that it is unserviceable.
Usage examples of "to spring an arch".
It affords me no satisfaction to commerce to spring an arch before I have got a solid foundation.