Spring

SPRING, verb intransitive preterit tense sprung, [sprang, not wholly obsolete; ] participle passive sprung.

1. To vegetate and rise out of the ground; to begin to appear; as vegetables.

To satisfy the desolate ground, and cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth. Job 38:27.

2. To begin to grow.

The teeth of the young not sprung--

3. To proceed, as from the seed or cause.

Much more good of sin shall spring

4. To arise; to appear; to begin to appear or exist.

When the day began to spring they let her go. Judges 21:1

Do not blast my springing hopes.

5. To break forth; to issue into sight or notice.

O spring to light; auspicious babe, be born.

6. To issue or proceed, as from ancestors or from a country. Aaron and Moses sprung from Levi.

7. To proceed, as from a cause, reason, principle, or other original. The noblest title springs from virtue.

They found new hope to spring out of despair.

8. To grow; to thrive.

What makes all this but Jupiter the king, at whose command we perish and we spring

9. To proceed or issue, as from a fountain or source. Water springs from reservoirs in the earth. Rivers spring from lakes or ponds.

10. To leap; to bound; to jump.

The mountain stag that springs from highth to highth, and bounds along the plains--

11. To fly back; to start; as, a bow when bent, springs back by its elastic power.

12. To start or rise suddenly from a covert.

Watchful as fowlers when their game will spring

13. To shoot; to issue with speed and violence.

And sudden light sprung through the vaulted roof--

14. To bend or wind from a straight direction or plane surface. Our mechanics say, a piece of timber or a plank springs in seasoning.

To spring at, to leap towards; to attempt to reach by a leap.

To spring in, to rush in; to enter with a leap or in haste.

To spring forth, to leap out; to rush out.

To spring on or upon, to leap on; to rush on with haste or violence; to assault.

SPRING, verb transitive

1. To start or rouse, as game; to cause to rise from the earth or from a covert; as, to spring a pheasant.

2. To produce quickly or unexpectedly.

The nurse, surprisd with fright, starts up and leaves her bed, and springs a light.

[I have never heard such an expression.]

3. To start; to contrive or to produce or propose on a sudden; to produce unexpectedly.

The friends to the cause sprang a new project.

[In lieu of spring the people int he United States generally use start; to start a new project.]

4. To cause to explode; as, to spring a mine.

5. To burst; to cause to open; as, to spring a leak. When it is said, a vessel has sprung a leak, the meaning is, the leak has then commenced.

6. To crack; as, to spring a mast or a yard.

7. To cause to close suddenly, as the parts of a trap; as, to spring a trap.

To spring a butt, in seamens language, to loosen the end of a plank in a ships bottom.

To spring the luff, when a vessel yields to the helm, and sails nearer to the wind than before.

To spring a fence, for to leap a fence, is not a phrase used in this country.

To spring an arch, to set off, begin or commence an arch from an abutment or pier.

SPRING, noun

1. A leap; a bound; a jump; as of an animal.

The prisner with a spring from prison broke.

2. A flying back; the resilience of a body recovering its former state by its elasticity; as the spring of a bow.

3. Elastic power or force. The soul or the mind requires relaxation, that it may recover its natural spring

Heavns, what a spring was in his arm.

4. An elastic body; a body which, when bent or forced from its natural state, has the power of recovering it; as the spring of a watch or clock.

5. Any active power; that by which action or motion is produced or propagated.

--Like nature letting down the springs of life.

Our author shuns by vulgar springs to move the heros glory--

6. A fountain of water; an issue of water from the earth, or the basin of water at the place of its issue. Springs are temporary or perennial. From springs proceed rivulets, and rivulets united form rivers. Lakes and ponds are usually fed by springs.

7. The place where water usually issues from the earth, though no water is there. Thus we say, a spring is dry.

8. A source; that from which supplies are drawn. The real Christian has in his own breast a perpetual and inexhaustible spring of joy.

The sacred spring whence right and honor stream.

9. Rise; original; as the spring of the day. 1 Samuel 9:26.

10. Cause; original. The springs of great events are often concealed from common observation.

11. The season of the year when plants begin to vegetate and rise; the vernal season. This season comprehends the months of March, April and May, in the middle latitudes north of the equator.

12. In seamens language, a crack in a mast or yard, running obliquely or transversely. [In the sense of leak, I believe it is not used.]

13. A rope passed out of a ships stern and attached to a cable proceeding from her bow, when she is at anchor. It is intended to bring her broadside to bear upon some object. A spring is also a rope extending diagonally from the stern of one ship to the head of another, to make on ship sheer off to a greater distance.

14. A plant; a shoot; a young tree. [Not in use.]

15. A youth. [Not in use.]

16. A hand; a shoulder of pork. [Not in use.]