Sprout

How to spell sprout

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce sprout

What does sprout mean?

1. verbTo begin to grow, producing shoots, buds, or new growth.
2. nounA young shoot or new growth from a plant, or a small edible bud such as a Brussels sprout.

Sprout in a sentence

• verb

  The seeds will sprout within a week if the soil stays warm.

• noun

  A tiny green sprout appeared on the seed tray within days.

• verb

  Potatoes left in a cupboard tend to sprout in the dark.

• noun

  A tiny green sprout pushed up through the cracked pavement.

Where does sprout come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Sprout descends from the Old English verb sprūtan, meaning 'to grow' or 'to put forth shoots', and it belongs to a broad family of Germanic words for growing and bursting forth. Related forms survive in Dutch spruiten and German spriessen, all carrying the same sense of new green growth pushing out from a seed or stem. The same ancient root also gave English the words 'spurt' and 'spray', which share the idea of something shooting suddenly outward. By the medieval period the noun had developed to name the young shoot itself, and the familiar 'Brussels sprout' borrowed the city's name because the vegetable was widely cultivated near Brussels. The spelling has stayed close to its Germanic origin, with the 'ou' simply representing the long vowel that English settled on over the centuries.

How the word is built

• sprout (a single root from Old English sprūtan, to grow or shoot forth); no prefix or suffix