Also 6 spryght(e. [var. of SPRITE sb., after native words in -ight.]
† 1. = SPIRIT sb. in various senses. Obs.
1536. Primer Hen. VIII., 2. Blessed be God,… Wch hath strengthened His feeble flock, Wth stedfast faith & bold spright.
1563. Googe, Eglogs (Arb.), 54. I … sought the chief[e]st means I could to helpe my weryed spryght.
1601. B. Jonson, Poetaster, III. i. I drinke, as I would wright, In flowing measure, fill’d with flame and spright.
a. 1649. Drumm. of Hawth., Flowers Sion, V. Wks. (S.T.S.), II. 41. Of this Light, Eternall, double, kindled was thy Spright Eternallie.
c. 1700. Dryden, Cock & Fox, 104. You groan,… As something had disturb’d your noble Spright.
† b. pl. = SPIRIT sb. 17. Obs.
1577. St. Aug. Manual (Longman), 33. Thou preparest a table … against I come to refresh my appalled sprights.
1596. Spenser, F. Q., V. iii. 40. Turne we here to this faire furrowes end Our wearie yokes, to gather fresher sprights.
1605. Shaks., Macb., IV. i. 127. Come Sisters, cheere we vp his sprights, And shew the best of our delights.
2. A disembodied spirit, a ghost; a supernatural being, goblin, fairy, etc. (Cf. SPIRIT sb. 2 b and 3).
a. 1533. Ld. Berners, Huon, cxxxii. 492. Glad was Huon when he had loste the syghte of the spryghte.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., II. x. 8. Where companing with feends and filthy Sprights,… They brought forth Giants.
1610. Shaks., Temp., I. ii. 381. Foote it featly heere, and there, and sweete Sprights beare the burthen.
1687. A. Lovell, trans. Thevenot’s Trav., I. 176. I lay at the foot of that Eminence, and the Sprights did not at all disturb my rest.
1731–8. Swift, Polite Conv., Introd. 33. Some scrupulous Persons,… who, by a prejudiced Education, are afraid of Sprights.
1813. Hogg, Queen’s Wake, 19. Each glen was sought for tales … Of boding dreams, of wandering spright.
transf. 1570. Googe, Pop. Kingd., I. 4. An Emprour great of might, Whose necke was stampt and trode vpon by this deformed spright [sc. the Pope].
