[f. SPARK sb.1 + -LET.]
1. A small spark or sparkle. Also transf.
1689. Cotton, Poems, Night, ii. Spread o’er the Earth thy Sable Veil, Heaven’s twinckling sparklets to conceal.
1824. Blackw. Mag., XV. 429. The glimmering worm … Whose sparklet of dim radiance [etc.].
1877. [May Laffan], Honourable Miss Ferrard, III. iv. 185. The red deepened to crimson, then purple shading into a pale yellowish mist, in which here and there a tiny sparklet was visible.
fig. 1830. W. Taylor, Hist. Surv. Germ. Poetry, II. 176. The steel, with which The great Creator of all truth bestows On the dead tinder of futurity, The first live sparklet?
1856. Miss Yonge, Daisy Chain, I. xxiv. (1881), 256. The first little gleam, little bit of a sparklet of the meaning.
1872. Frances R. Havergal, Ministry of Song (ed. 3), 13.
| A praise all morning sunshine, | |
| And sparklets of the spring, | |
| O’er which the long life-shadows | |
| No chastening softness fling. |
2. A small sparkling ornament for a dress.
1902. Daily Chron., 2 May, 8/3. Mother-of-pearl paillettes are the latest sparklet introduced for the glorification of chiffon dresses.
