Sprinkle

How to spell sprinkle

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce sprinkle

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sprinkle mean?

1. verbTo scatter small drops, grains, or pieces of something over a surface.
2. nounA small amount of something scattered, or a brief light fall of rain.

Sprinkle in a sentence

• verb

  She likes to sprinkle a little salt over the chips before serving.

• noun

  A sprinkle of cinnamon made the coffee taste much richer.

• verb

  Gardeners often sprinkle fresh seed across the bare patches of lawn.

• noun

  There was only a sprinkle of rain, so the picnic carried on.

Where does sprinkle come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Sprinkle comes from late Middle English, appearing around the 1300s, and is a frequentative form built on an older Germanic root meaning to scatter in small drops or specks. It is closely related to Middle Dutch and Middle Low German sprenkelen, meaning to besprinkle or speckle, and shares an ancestor with the verb sprinkel, a spot or speckle. The little ending -le is the same frequentative suffix found in words like crackle, dribble, and twinkle, signalling an action made up of many small repeated movements, which fits the scattering of tiny drops perfectly. Over time the word broadened from literal water and dust to figurative scattering, so that a speech could be sprinkled with jokes. The cluster of consonants in spr- and -nkle is what makes the spelling feel busy, but each letter earns its place: the silent-feeling -le simply marks that frequentative tail.

How the word is built

• sprink- (Germanic root meaning to scatter in drops)
• -le (frequentative verb suffix denoting repeated small actions)