Spryttan

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Archaic verb meaning to sprout, bud, or put forth new shoots as plants do in spring
2. Old English term for a plant beginning to send up sprouts or buds from its roots or seed
3. Obsolete word describing the act of growing new shoots or sprouts from the ground

Etymology: "Spryttan" is an Old English verb, and its surprising feature is how little it has to do with the modern word "sprout." It is a derivative of "spring" in its old sense of a bursting forth or rising up, not of the leaping motion we now associate with that word. The Old English "springan" meant to leap, rise, or spring up, and "spryttan" was formed from it with a causative suffix, so it meant to make something spring up. In practice, that became the idea of a seed or plant pushing up new growth. Because it is an Old English word, it passed directly into the language's earliest vocabulary and did not come in through Latin or French. Its sense of growth was reinforced over the centuries by the ordinary spring-to-sprout connection in the English countryside, but the word faded from everyday use after the medieval period and survives today mainly in dictionaries and in the work of writers who enjoy archaic diction.