spring

Definitions

General English

  • noun a wire

    which

    is twisted

    round

    and round and which goes back to its

    original

    shape

    after

    you

    have

    pulled it or pushed it
  • verb to move

    suddenly

General Science

  • verb to make a

    rapid

    upwards or forwards movement

Agriculture

  • noun a place where water comes naturally out of the ground
  • noun the season of the year following

    winter

    and before

    summer

    , when days become longer and the

    weather

    progressively warmer
  • noun a metal device which, when under tension, tries to resume its previous position

Cars & Driving

Construction

  • An

    elastic

    body or shape, such as a spirally wound metal coil, that stores energy by distorting and imparts that energy when it returns to its original shape.
  • The line or surface from which an arch rises.

Military

  • noun a flexible piece of metal (often in the form of tightly coiled wire), which is used as a shock absorber or to keep a catch or clip closed or to

    maintain

    tension

Travel

  • noun a small

    stream

    of water coming out of the ground
  • noun a season of the year following winter when plants begin to grow and put out leaves

Origin & History of “spring”

The

noun

spring and the

verb

spring

come

from

the

same

source: the Indo-European base *sprengh-,

which

denoted ‘rapid movement’. Of its Germanic verbal descendants, German and Dutch springen,

like

English

spring,

have

moved on semantically to ‘jump’, but Swedish springa ‘run’ has stayed closer to its roots. The noun spring in Old English times denoted the place

where

a

stream

‘rises’ from the ground, which

soon

evolved metaphorically into ‘source, origin’ in general. The notion of ‘rising’ was

also

applied figuratively to the ‘beginning of the day’ and to the ‘emergence of new growth’, and the latter led in the 16th century, via the expression spring of the year, to the use of spring for the ‘season following winter’ (replacing the previous term Lent).
http://www.dictionarycentral.com/definition/spring.html