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spurt

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Etymology and origin of the English word spurt

Pronunciation

  • UK: /spɜːt/[1]
  • US: /spɜɹt/[1]

spurt1 brief burst of activity

Confidence
Unknown
First attested
1566 before 1566, Richard Edwards, Damon and Pithias
Ultimate origin
English spirt

Etymology

The word for a brief burst of activity is from English a variant of earlier spirt, "a brief period of time",[2][3][4][5] which the OED calls obscure in origin and Barnhart and Etymonline uncertain.[5][2][4] The American Heritage Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Unabridged, the Oxford Dictionary of English and the Shorter Oxford call the origin unknown,[6][7][8][9] and the Shorter Oxford adds that its senses of time and effort and its senses of a jet may be separate developments.[9] Etymonline suggests a connection with spurt2,[4] and Klein and Weekley thought it perhaps or probably identical with that verb in origin.[10][11] Weekley allowed a link with sprint as well.[11] The verb is formed from the noun.[3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A short spell of something: before 1566, in Richard Edwards's Damon and Pithias.[5][3] The variant spirt, a brief period of time, is recorded from about 1550, in R. Weaver's Lusty Iuventus;[5][3] Etymonline says the 1540s.[4]

Semantic evolution

A short stretch of time became a short stretch of effort: both senses are first recorded before 1591, in sermons by H. Smith.[5][3] The Shorter Oxford calls the time sense now dialectal or passing into the effort sense.[9] The English Dialect Dictionary records it for the north of England, along with a sudden action in Northamptonshire and Suffolk, a short-lived commotion in Northumberland and a short drinking bout in Surrey.[12] The late 18th century added speed, and the early 19th a rise in business or prices.[5][9] Barnhart finds the verb as spirt in Nashe in 1599, and as spurt in 1664.[3][5] Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives the same 1664 date,[7] while the Shorter Oxford puts the verb in the late 16th century.[9] Slang added a small quantity, especially of drink, from 1859.[5][13]

Timeline

  • before 1566 – a short spell of something (obsolete by 1699).[5][3]
  • before 1591 – a brief period of time; a brief, unsustained effort.[5][3] Etymonline dates the burst of activity to the 1590s.[4]
  • 1605 – in the phrase by spurts, fitfully.[5]
  • 1664 – verb, to make a spurt, put on speed.[5][7][3]
  • 1699 – at sea, a short spell of wind.[5]
  • 1787 – a short spell of rapid movement.[5]
  • 1814 – a sudden rise in business or prices.[5]
  • 1859 – slang or dialect, a small amount.[5][13]
  • 1874 – in the United States, a sudden dash of wildfowl.[5]
  • 1885 – a spell of gaiety, a frolic.[5]
  • 1931 – verb, of stocks and shares, to rise suddenly.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A sudden, brief burst of effort, activity or development: She finished the draft in one last spurt of energy.[14][7][5]
  2. A marked increase of speed, kept up for a short time: The cyclist put on a spurt near the top of the hill.[5][9]
  3. A sudden rise in business or prices, or the period it lasts.[5][9]
  4. A short period of time, especially in for a spurt.[7][5][9]
  5. (slang or dialect) A small amount.[5][13][9]

Verb

  1. To make a sudden brief effort or put on speed: The leader spurted ahead on the final bend.[14][7][5]
  2. Of stocks and shares, to rise suddenly in price.[5][9]

Word family

  • growth spurt

spurt2 to gush, squirt

Confidence
Uncertain
First attested
1570 J. Foxe, Actes and Monumentes
Ultimate origin
English spirt

Etymology

The word for gushing out is from English a variant of spirt,[2][3][4][5][15] though the OED notes that spurt is recorded a little earlier, and Barnhart thinks the later date of spirt perhaps an accident of the record.[5][3] Its further origin is obscure.[5][4] It is perhaps related to Middle High German spürzen or spirzen (“to spit”) and sprützen (“to squirt”),[2][4][7] and through them to sprout;[2][4][11] Weekley saw a cognate in German spritzen.[11] The OED also compares 17th-century Icelandic spirta (“to utter”),[5] and Etymonline suggests that it may ultimately be imitative.[4] The American Heritage Dictionary, Hoad and the Shorter Oxford simply call the origin unknown.[6][16][9] The noun comes from the verb,[3][5] and perhaps partly from spurt1 in its use for intermittent jets.[3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a liquid, to burst out in a jet: 1570, in J. Foxe's Actes and Monumentes.[5][2][7] Etymonline says the 1560s,[4] and the variant spirt is first recorded in 1582, in R. Stanyhurst's translation of Virgil.[5][3]

Semantic evolution

The verb took an object from 1601, in Holland's Pliny, for sending something out in a jet.[5] Johnson (1755) defines it as "to fly out with a quick stream" and quotes Wiseman's Surgery on blood spurting from the puncture of a lancet.[17] The noun came later: a phrase for intermittent jets, by spurts, in 1644,[5][3] spirt for a jet in Gay's Trivia in 1716,[5][3] and spurt itself in 1775.[5][3][4] From 1859, in Tennyson, it also meant a sudden outburst of feeling or action.[5][9]

Timeline

  • 1570 – to gush out in a jet.[5][2][7]
  • 1582 – the variant spirt.[5][3]
  • 1601 – transitive, to send out in a jet.[5]
  • 1644 – in the phrase by spurts, in intermittent jets.[5][3]
  • 1716 – noun, spirt, a jet of water.[5][3]
  • 1775 – noun, spurt, a stream of water thrown up suddenly.[5][3][4]
  • 1854 – rare, to sputter, in Emerson.[5]
  • 1859 – noun, a sudden outburst of feeling or action.[5]

Meanings

Verb

  1. Of a liquid or flame, to gush out suddenly in a jet: Oil spurted from the cracked gasket.[14][7][5]
  2. To send out in a sudden stream; to squirt: The broken main spurted muddy water over the road.[14][5][9]

Noun

  1. A sudden forceful stream or jet: a spurt of steam.[14][7][5]
  2. A sudden outburst of feeling or action: a spurt of anger.[7][5][9]

Word family

  • spurter
  • spurtive
  • spurtively
  • outspurt

Usage notes

The spelling spirt is the less common one in Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Collins,[7][14] and the Shorter Oxford finds it now chiefly in the sense of gushing.[9] A rarer verb spurt, to sprout or shoot, with a noun for a shoot or sprout, is recorded from 1601 in the OED, which ties it to spirt, a metathetic form of sprit;[5] Merriam-Webster Unabridged likewise calls it probably an alteration of that verb.[7] The OED also has a coal-mining term spurt from 1883, of uncertain origin.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ 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 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  11. ^ a b c d Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  12. ^ 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)
  13. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  14. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  15. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  16. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
Cite this entry

“Spurt.” Etymologically, 6 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/spurt. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

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