Spree

How to spell spree

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce spree

What does spree mean?

1. nounA short period of unrestrained activity, especially energetic spending or indulgence.

Spree in a sentence

• She went on a shopping spree after her bonus arrived.

• A weekend spending spree left their savings account nearly empty.

Where does spree come from?

Language of origin: Unknown

Spree first appears in English in the late eighteenth century, originally in Scots and northern dialect, where it meant a bout of lively, sometimes riotous activity. Its ultimate origin is genuinely uncertain, which is why dictionaries usually flag it as obscure. One suggestion links it to the Scots word 'spreath' or 'spreith', meaning cattle taken in a raid or plunder, which would tie the early sense of a wild outing to the idea of a raiding party. Another guess connects it loosely to French 'esprit', meaning spirit or liveliness, though the evidence for that is thin. By the nineteenth century the meaning had softened from drunken revelry to any burst of unrestrained indulgence, and today it most often describes an energetic round of shopping or spending. Because the word is short and ends in the doubled 'ee', the main spelling trap is simply remembering the two e's rather than a single one.

How the word is built

• spree (single root, no prefix or suffix; an unanalysable word)