spring
To move or burst forth.
To appear.
To grow, to sprout.
Commerce! beneath whose poison-breathing shade / No solitary virtue dares to spring, […]
Dr. Sigmund Freud... says that everything you and I do springs from two motives: the sex urge and the desire to be great.
(UK dialectal) To mature.
(figurative) To arise, to come into existence.
(sometimes figurative) To enliven.
(figurative) To move with great speed and energy.
However, with the dainty volume my quondam friend sprang into fame. At the same time he cast off the chrysalis of a commonplace existence.
Thus she advanced; her belly low, almost touching the surface of the ground—a great cat preparing to spring upon its prey.
To be born, descend, or originate from.
(obsolete) To rise in social position or military rank, to be promoted.
To cause to spring.
(of mechanisms) To cause to work or open by sudden application of pressure.
To leap over.
(obsolete, of horses) To breed with, to impregnate.
(obsolete) To wet, to moisten.
To burst into pieces, to explode, to shatter.
(obsolete, military) To go off.
(nautical) To crack.
To come upon and flush out.
(Australia, slang) To catch in an illegal act or compromising position.
(obsolete) To begin.
(obsolete, slang) To put bad money into circulation.
To tell, to share.
(slang, US) To free from imprisonment, especially by facilitating an illegal escape.
(slang, rare) To be free of imprisonment, especially by illegal escape.
(architecture, of arches) To build, to form the initial curve of.
(architecture, of arches) To extend, to curve.
(nautical) To turn a vessel using a spring attached to its anchor cable.
To pay or spend a certain sum, to yield.
He wouldn't spring a nickel for a bag of peanuts.
(obsolete, slang) To raise an offered price.
(US, dialectal) Sprain.
(US, dialectal) Strain.
(obsolete) To act as a spring: to strongly rebound.
(rare) To equip with springs, especially (vehicles) to equip with a suspension.
(figurative, rare, obsolete) 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.
(UK, dialectal, chiefly of cows) To swell with milk or pregnancy.
(of rattles, archaic) To sound, to play.
(of animals) To find or get enough food during springtime.
An act of springing: a leap, a jump.
The pris'ner with a spring from prison broke; / Then stretch'd his feather'd fans with all his might, / And to the neighb'ring maple wing'd his flight.
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.
No joy the blowing season gives, / The herald melodies of spring, / But in the songs I love to sing / A doubtful gleam of solace lives.
(astronomy) 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.
(meteorology) The three months of March, April, and May in the Northern Hemisphere and September, October, and November in the Southern Hemisphere.
(figurative) The time of something's growth; the early stages of some process.
(politics) a period of political liberalization and democratization
(fashion) 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.
(oceanography, obsolete) The rising of the sea at high tide.
(oceanography) The especially high tide shortly after full and new moons.
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.
(nautical) A line from a vessel's end or side to its anchor cable used to diminish or control its movement.
(nautical) 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.
(figurative) A race, a lineage.
(figurative) A youth.
A shoot, a young tree.
A grove of trees; a forest.
(slang) An erection of the penis.
(nautical, obsolete) 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.
Elasticity: the property of a body springing back to its original form after compression, stretching, etc.
Elastic energy, power, or force.
Heav'ns what a spring was in his Arm, to throw: / How high he held his Shield, and rose at ev'ry blow!
Mrs Durbeyfield, excited by her song, trod the rocker with all the spring that was left in her after a long day's seething in the suds.
The source from which an action or supply of something springs.
As well the singers as the players on instruments shall be there: all my springs are in thee.
[…] discover, at least in some degree, the secret springs and principles, by which the human mind is actuated in its operations?
‘Have you ever contemplated, Adrian, the phenomenon of springs?’ / ‘Coils, you mean?’ / ‘Not coils, Adrian, no. Coils not. Think springs of water. Think wells and spas and sources. Well-springs in the widest and loveliest sense. Jerusalem, for instance, is a spring of religiosity. One small town in the desert, but the source of the world’s three most powerful faiths. […] Religion seems to bubble from its sands.’
Something which causes others or another to spring forth or spring into action, ''particularly''
A cause, a motive, etc.
(obsolete, music) A lively piece of music.
To spend the springtime somewhere.
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