sprout

Etymology

The verb is inherited from Middle English spruten, later sprouten,^[2][3][4][5] inherited from Old English āsprūtan (“to sprout forth”),^[4][5][2][6] a strong verb found in Old English only with prefixes, as in the past participle āsproten.^[6][7][8][9] It goes back to Proto-Germanic *spreutaną,^[10] and is cognate with Old Frisian sprūta (“to come forth, spring up”), Middle Dutch sprūten, Dutch spruiten, Middle Low German sprūten, Old Saxon ūtsprūtan, Old High German spriozan and German sprießen.^{[6][5][2][3][7][10]} The OED calls its further etymology uncertain and disputed, and notes that the same base perhaps appears in a Gothic adverb meaning "quickly".^[6] According to Watkins it is from Proto-Indo-European *spreud-, an extended form of Proto-Indo-European *sper- (“to strew”),^[5][4] and Orel compares Lithuanian sprū́sti (“to slip out, flee”).^[10] The noun is formed from the verb,^[6][3][11] probably after sprūte and spruyte;^[11] Etymonline derives it instead from sprote, sprota.^[5] The same base is in sprit.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a plant, to shoot forth or spring up by natural growth: before 1200, in a homily in a Trinity College, Cambridge manuscript.^[6] Barnhart dates the verb to before 1200, in the Ancrene Riwle.^[2]

Semantic evolution

By about 1400 the verb was used of the plant or seed itself, to put out shoots or to germinate, and of the ground, to bring forth plants;^[6] the noun, a shoot or bud, appears about the same time, in a psalter.^[6] The figurative sense, to spring up quickly and in numbers, is recorded from 1563,^[6] and the transitive sense, to put out shoots or leaves, from 1574,^[6] or about 1600 in Etymonline.^[5] Johnson (1755) defined the noun as a shoot of a vegetable.^[12] From 1620 sprouts were the tender shoots of brassicas eaten as a vegetable;^[6] since 1818 the word was short for Brussels sprout.^[6] A sprout was also a young person: Green's Dictionary of Slang quotes "young sprouts of Troy" from 1672,^[13] the OED records the sense from 1813, originally Scottish and now chiefly American,^[6] and Etymonline dates it to 1934.^[5] In 19th-century American slang, to put someone through a course of sprouts was to beat or harshly discipline them.^[13] In northern English and Scottish dialect, and in American regional use, to sprout potatoes was to rub off their sprouts.^[14][6]

Timeline

• before 1200 – of a plant, to shoot forth or spring up.^[6]
• before 1400 – to put out shoots or buds; of a seed, to germinate; the noun, a shoot or bud.^[6]
• 1563 – to appear or spring up quickly and in numbers.^[6]
• 1574 – to put out shoots, leaves or other growth.^[6] Etymonline dates the transitive use to about 1600.^[5]
• 1620 – tender shoots of brassicas eaten as a vegetable.^[6]
• 1672 – a young person.^[13] The OED's first record of this sense is from 1813.^[6]
• 1770 – to make seeds or plants sprout, before sowing or to eat them.^[6]
• 1818 – short for Brussels sprout.^[6]
• 1854 – US slang, put through a course of sprouts, to beat or discipline harshly.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. Of a seed or plant, to begin to grow; to put out shoots or buds: The beans sprouted within a week.^[15][3][6]
2. To grow or develop something: The tree sprouted new leaves. He had sprouted a beard over the summer.^[15][3][6]
3. To appear or develop suddenly and in large numbers: Cafés sprouted all over the old town.^[15][3][6]
4. To cause seeds to sprout, especially in order to eat them.^[6]

Noun

1. A new shoot or bud of a plant.^[15][3][6]
2. A Brussels sprout.^[15][6]
3. Usually plural, young shoots eaten as a vegetable, such as bean sprouts.^[6]
4. (informal) A young person; a child.^[3][6][13]

Word family

• resprout
• nonsprouting
• unsprouting

Related words

• unsprouted
• sprit
• spread
• sprawl
• spurt

Usage notes

A separate verb sprout, to spout or squirt liquid, is recorded from 1578 and is of uncertain origin, perhaps the same word influenced by spout;^[6][11] it survived in Shetland, Yorkshire and Lancashire dialect for spurting water from the mouth.^[14]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b c Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b c d e Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
14. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
15. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins