Sprinter

How to spell sprinter

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce sprinter

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sprinter mean?

1. nounA runner who specialises in short, fast races over a brief distance.

Sprinter in a sentence

• The sprinter exploded out of the starting blocks ahead of the field.

• As a sprinter she trained for raw acceleration rather than endurance.

Where does sprinter come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

This word is built from the verb 'sprint' plus the agent suffix '-er', which marks the person who performs an action. The verb sprint has a Scandinavian flavour and is generally traced to Old Norse roots such as 'spretta', meaning to jump up, dart, or spurt forward, which passed into northern English dialects. For a long time the word survived mainly in regional speech before resurfacing in the language of athletics during the nineteenth century, when organised foot racing became popular. Once 'sprint' settled into the meaning of a short, all-out burst of running, 'sprinter' followed naturally as the name for the runner who specialises in those explosive short distances. The spelling is mercifully phonetic: it simply keeps the whole word 'sprint' intact and adds '-er', so there is no silent letter or hidden vowel to trip over.

How the word is built

• sprint (to run at full speed)
• -er (agent suffix: one who does)