Springer

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A type of dog bred for flushing game during hunting ; a person or object that moves by jumping or leaping ; a company that publishes scholarly books and journals
2. A hunting dog known for retrieving and flushing out quarry ; an entity capable of sudden upward or forward movement ; an established publisher of scientific and academic materials
3. A dog breed trained to assist hunters by quickly springing game ; an organism or item that leaps or jumps actively ; a publishing firm producing research and educational literature

Etymology: The name comes from an ordinary English verb: a springer is one that springs, and the dog earned its name by flushing game birds out of cover so that they rose, or "sprang," into the air for the hunter's gun or hawk. The "-er" ending is one of the oldest English suffixes for forming agent nouns, going back to Old English "-ere," which attached to verbs to name the doer of an action. The "spring" in the name is the same verb as in the metal coil or the season, and the dog's job explains the word's meaning precisely. Spaniels were bred to work close to the hunter, and the springer variety was used to push birds up from thick ground, a method that gave the name a clear logic even before anyone wrote it down.