Also 7 spratt, sprate. [Later form of SPROT1.]
1. A small sea-fish, Clupea Sprattus, common on the Atlantic coasts of Europe.
1597. Deloney, Canaans Calamitie, Wks. (1912), 432. One sprat to us is sweeter gotten gaines, Then so much siluer, as this house can hold.
a. 1625. Fletcher, Bloody Brother, II. ii. A plump Vintner Kneeling, and offring incense to his deitie, Which shall be only this, red Sprats and Pilchers.
1661. Lovell, Hist. Anim. & Min., 225. Sprats … are squalid, leane, and not of copious aliment.
1727. Swift, City Shower, Wks. 1755, III. II. 40. Drown’d puppies, stinking sprats,… and turnip tops, come tumbling down the flood.
1789. Mrs. Piozzi, France & Italy, I. 204. Fresh anchovies … dressed like sprats in London.
1800. Colquhoun, Comm. Thames, xv. 436. Sprats and Herrings are caught only during a short season.
1870. Yeats, Nat. Hist. Comm., 320. Forty bushels of sprats serve for an acre of land.
b. collect. Fish of this species.
1611. Florio, Affumate, blote hearings, dried sprate.
1856. Farmer’s Mag., Jan., 37. In a condition more appropriate to the desired object than when the sprat and herring were thrown over arable land.
1881. Cassell’s Nat. Hist., V. 13. Perch, Gurnards, Smelts, Pike, Herring, Sprat, and Eel.
c. As a specific name.
1769. Pennant, Brit. Zool., III. 295. The sprat grows to about the length of five inches.
1837. M. Donovan, Dom. Econ., II. 195. The Sprat very much resembles the herring, except in size.
1865. Couch, Brit. Fishes, IV. 109. The Sprat is known in the German Ocean and the Baltic, and from thence round the British Islands.
1896. Lydekker, Roy. Nat. Hist., V. 489. The much smaller sprat … differs by the absence of vomerine teeth.
2. One or other of various small fishes, usually one resembling a sprat.
1603. G. Owen, Pembrokeshire (1891), 123. Spratte or sand eele.
1871. Kingsley, At Last, vi. The yellow-billed sprat [Alosa Bishopi] … is usually so poisonous that ‘death has occurred from eating it.’
1882. Jordan & Gilbert, Synopsis Fishes N. Amer., 274. Stolephorus compressus, ‘Sprat.’
1883. Day, Fishes Gt. Brit., II. 232. Sprat … is in places erroneously employed for the young of the herring.
1884. Goode, Nat. Hist. Aquat. Anim., 277. Rhacochilus toxotes.… This species is called ‘Alfione’ at Soquel, ‘Sprat’ at Santa Cruz.
3. fig. a. Applied to persons, usually as a term of contempt.
1601. Shaks., All’s Well, III. vi. 113. When his disguise and he is parted, tell me what a sprat you shall finde him.
1605. Tryall Chev., II. i. in Bullen, Old Pl., III. 289. Bowyer a Captayne? a Capon,… a lame haberdine, a red beard Sprat, a Yellow-hammer.
1882. Miss Margaret Lonsdale, in Macm. Mag., XLV. 394. Bare-legged sprats of all shapes and sizes dance in the surf.
1901. G. Douglas, House w. Green Shutters, 155. It was a downcome … to pack in among a crowd of the Barbie sprats.
b. A small amount, a mere morsel.
1815. J. Adams, Wks. (1856), X. 129. Five millions would be but a sprat for the nourishment of leviathans.
c. In phrases denoting the venturing of a small expenditure in the hope of a large gain.
1856. Reade, Never too late, lix. Did you never hear of the man that flung away a sprat to catch a whale?
1864. N. & Q., 3rd Ser. VI. 495/1. Give a Sprat to catch a Mackarel.
1876. Chambers’s Jrnl., 1 Jan., 7/2. To drive rivalry to despair, he is said to have actually sold certain classes of articles below prime cost. That, no doubt, was a little hazardous. It was safe only on the principle of throwing out a sprat to catch a herring.
4. slang. A sixpence.
It is doubtful if the application in quot. 1857 is correct.
1839. Slang Dict., 34. Sprat, sixpence.
1857. Morn. Chron., 2 Dec., 3/2 (Encycl. Dict.). Several Lascars were charged with passing ‘sprats,’ the slang term applied to spurious fourpenny pieces, sixpences, and shillings.
1902. H. Lawson, Childr. Bush, 6. The crown [of the hat] was worn as thin as paper by the quids,… bobs and tanners or sprats … that had been chucked into it.
5. attrib. and Comb., as sprat-catcher, -fishery, -fishing, -gridiron, -net, -seine, -tinning; sprat-day (see quot.); † sprat-fare, sprat-fishing; sprat-herring, -weather (see quots.).
1599. Nashe, Lenten Stuffe, Wks. (Grosart), V. 242. Those Colchester oyster-men, or whiting-mungers and *sprat-catchers.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, I. 69. Sprats … are generally introduced about the 9th November. Indeed, ‘Lord Mayor’s day’ is sometimes called *‘sprat day.’
c. 1568. in Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm., Var. Coll. IV. 302. [300 mariners for the] *spratte fare taking yearly 3,000 lasts of sprats].
1883. F. A. Smith, Swedish Fisheries, 9. The revenue of the herring and *sprat fisheries of the whole country may be estimated.
1837. Penny Cycl., VII. 277/1. *Sprat-fishing commences in the early part of November.
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, *Sprat-gridiron, a gridiron made specially for broiling sprats.
1884. Goode, Nat. Hist. Aquat. Anim., 579. The *‘Sprat’ Herring of New York, Clupea indigena.
1862. Catal. Internat. Exhib., Brit., II. No. 3799, Mackerel, herring, pilchard, and *sprat nets.
1883. R. C. Leslie, Sea-painter’s Log, ix. From the small mesh required, a *sprat-seine of any size is costly.
1892. Pall Mall Gaz., 6 Feb., 7/1. The opening of the *sprat-tinning industry at Deal … has greatly enhanced the value of these fish.
1847. Halliw., s.v., The dark roky days of November and December are called *sprat weather, from that being the most favorable season for catching sprats.
b. In names of birds, as sprat-borer, -diver, -loon, -mowe (see quots.).
1785. Latham, Gen. Synop. Birds, III. II. 342. This bird [Speckled Diver] is pretty frequent on the river Thames, where it is called by the fishermen Sprat Loon, being often seen in vast numbers among the shoals of that fish.
1802. Montagu, Ornith., s.v. Diver, Sprat Loon. Greatest Speckled Diver. Cobble.
1855. Trans. Philol. Soc., 37. (Norfolk words) Sprat-mowe, Herring-gull.
1864. Atkinson, Prov. Names Birds, Sprat-borer, Prov. (Essex) name for young of Red-throated Diver—Colymbus septentrionalis.
1892. ‘Son of Marshes,’ Lond. Town, ix. 153. To mention a few of the family of the divers, we have the sprat diver [etc.].
Hence Sprat v. intr., to fish for sprats. Also Spratting vbl. sb.
1883. R. C. Leslie, Sea-painter’s Log, ix. A seine is also used for spratting in bays where the shore is clean.
1893. Daily News, 14 Jan., 3/4. The spratting season has been a complete failure as far as Essex fishermen are concerned.
1893. Times, 20 Nov., 10/1. The Walmer lifeboat was also driven into Dover…, after rescuing the Steven and Sarah with two hands, who were out spratting.
