Also springtime, spring time. [SPRING sb.1 6 b.]
1. The season of spring; = SPRING-TIDE 1.
1495. Trevisa’s Barth. De P. R. (W. de W.), III. xxiv. 73. In the sprynge tyme the calde is temperat and in herueste also.
1538. Elyot, Vernus, freshe, as the spring time.
1560. Daus, trans. Sleidane’s Comm., 137 b. In the begynning of the spryng tyme.
1600. J. Pory, trans. Leo’s Africa, III. 121. This towne is so durtie in the spring-time, that it would irke a man to walke the streetes.
1667. Milton, P. L., I. 769. As Bees In spring time … Poure forth thir populous youth about the Hive In clusters.
1710. Addison, Tatler, No. 218, ¶ 9. I look upon the whole Country in Spring-time as a spacious Garden.
1768. Holdsworth, Virgil, 121. It is the custom … to hough the land in the spring-time.
1855. Poultry Chron., III. 422. This [illness in bees] appears most frequently in the spring time.
1864. Bowen, Logic, ix. 300. How the green herb in the spring-time absorbs inorganic matter and assimilates it to itself.
2. a. The earlier period of a person’s life; youth.
1593. Shaks., 3 Hen. VI., II. iii. 47. I … now melt with wo, That Winter should cut off our Spring-time so.
1853. Talfourd, Castilian, I. i. In this season, which renews their spring-time.
1866. S. B. James, Duty & Doctrine (1871), 65. So ill-advised as to grudge spring-time its rounded cheek and supple limb.
1877. Black, Green Past., ii. She might have been taken for the very type of English girlhood in its sweetest springtime.
b. A time or period comparable in some way to spring. Usu. const. of.
a. 1764. Lloyd, Song, Poet. Wks. 1774, II. 36. The spring-time of love then employ.
1784. Cowper, Task, II. 512. In vain they push’d inquiry to the birth And spring-time of the world.
1862. Stanley, Jew. Ch. (1877), I. vi. 118. With all its faults and shortcomings it was the spring-time of their national existence.
1897. Jessopp, Donne, ii. 44. Notes … addressed to the great lady in the … happy springtime of her married life.
3. attrib., as spring-time call, day, etc.
1563. B. Googe, Eglogs, i. (Arb.), 35. My yeares be great, I wyl be gone, for spryngtyme nyghts be colde.
1842. Lover, Handy Andy, xliv. The old lady … was hailed with a chorus of ‘Cuckoo!’ by the multitude, one half of which ran after the coach … shouting forth the spring-time call.
1838. Mrs. Browning, To Miss Mitford, 6. Overleaning them this springtime day.
1886. A. Winchell, Walks Geol. Field, 280. It was during the spring-time empire of water that the Grent Lakes stood at their highest levels.
