spright

English

Etymology

Unetymological spelling of sprite.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /spɹaɪt/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪt

Noun

spright (plural sprights)

1. (obsolete) Spirit; mind; soul; state of mind; mood.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 40, page 100:

     Well may I ween, your grief is wondrous great; / For wondrous great griefe groneth in my ſpright, / Whiles thus I heare you of your ſorrowes treat.

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 24, page 141:

     Who comming to that ſowle-diſeaſed knight, / Could hardly him intreat, to tell his grief: / Which knowne, and all that noyd his heauie ſpright, / Well ſearcht, eftſoones he gan apply relief.

2. (obsolete) A supernatural being; a spirit; a shade; an apparition; a ghost.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 38, page 13:

     And forth he cald out of deepe darknes dredd / Legions of Sprights, the which like litle flyes / Fluttring about his euerdamned hedd, [...]

   • 1600, [Torquato Tasso], “The Eleuenth Booke of Godfrey of Bulloigne”, in Edward Fairefax [i.e., Edward Fairfax], transl., Godfrey of Bulloigne, or The Recouerie of Ierusalem. […], London: […] Ar[nold] Hatfield, for I[saac] Iaggard and M[atthew] Lownes, →OCLC, stanza 7, page 196:

     To thee, O Father, Sonne, and ſacred Spright. / One true, eternall, euerlaſting king, / To Chriſtes deere mother Marie virgin bright, / Pſalmes of thankeſgiuing and of praiſe they ſing, [...]

3. (obsolete) A kind of short arrow.

Derived terms

• sprightly

Verb

spright (third-person singular simple present sprights, present participle sprighting, simple past and past participle sprighted)

1. (obsolete) To haunt.
   • 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]:

     I am sprighted with a fool ;
     Frighted , and anger'd worse