sprout
noun
- young plant growth
verb
- grow out of the ground
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /spɹaʊt/ / /spɹʌʊt/
name
Etymology: * As a Dutch surname, from spruit (“sprout, shoot”) * As an English and Scottish surname, spelling variant of Sprott
- A surname.
noun
Etymology: From Middle English sproute, either from Middle English sprouten (“to sprout”) (see below); or from Middle Dutch sprute or Middle Low German sprûte (“sprout”), all related to Proto-West Germanic *spreutan. Doublet of spruit.
- A new growth of or on a plant, whether from seed or other parts.
- A germinated seed, an incipient young plant.
“Near-synonyms: seedling, chit”
- A germinated seed, an incipient young plant.
- A germinated seed, an incipient young plant.
- A child.
“Oh my, how your sprouts have grown!”
- A Brussels sprout.
“In our family we only eat sprouts once a year, at Christmas.”
verb
Etymology: From Middle English sprouten, spruten, from Old English sprūtan, from Proto-West Germanic *spreutan, from Proto-Germanic *spreutaną.
- To grow from seed; to germinate.
“The crocuses should be sprouting after 2 months, provided they're well tended.”
- To cause to grow from a seed.
“I sprouted beans and radishes and put them in my salad.”
- To deprive of sprouts.
“to sprout potatoes”
- To emerge from the ground as sprouts.
- To emerge haphazardly from a surface.
“Whiskers sprouted from the old man's chin.”
- To emerge or appear haphazardly.
“A lot of coffee shops have sprouted up in this neighbourhood since the block of flats was put up.”
“In those early years of the 1830s and 1840s, railways were sprouting up all over the country in a haphazard way.”