[f. SPRINKLE v.1]
1. A vessel or other device used for sprinkling water or other liquid.
1535. Coverdale, Jer. lii. 18. They toke awaye also the Cauldrons, shouels,… sprinklers, spones & all the brasen vessell.
1686. Goad, Celest. Bodies, II. iii. 192. They are the Sprinklers, the Water-Pots of Heaven.
1874. H. H. Cole, Catal. Ind. Art S. Kens. Mus., 137. Bottle, or Rose-water Sprinkler.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., 2292/1. A glass sprinkler found in Pompeii.
1882. Rep. Prec. Metals U.S., 152. Cold water … is forced through a fine sprinkler and falls upon them in a spray.
b. A machine or vehicle used for this purpose, esp. one for watering the roadway.
1879. Comstock, Rep. Cotton Ins., 252. Robinson’s combined sprinkler and duster for destruction of the cotton worm.
1893. A. Hill, in Scribner’s Mag., June, 708/1. In freezing weather the sprinkler is run [to make a frozen surface].
1895. R. W. Chambers, King in Yellow, Rue Barrée, ii. The watering carts and sprinklers spread freshness over the Boulevard.
c. An apparatus for extinguishing fires.
1887. Pall Mall Gaz., 4 June, 12/1. Sprinkler in Operation.
1901. Westm. Gaz., 18 Oct., 7/1. When the Manchester cotton-spinners … first had sprinklers installed in their premises.
2. A brush for sprinkling holy water.
1577. trans. Bullinger’s Decades (1592), 376. The holie cleansing water…, which they did sprinckle with a sprinckler made of hysope.
1656. W. Du Gard, trans. Comenius’ Gate Lat. Unl., 303. To sprinkle with Holy-water (taken out of a pot with a sprinkler).
1698. Motteux, Quix. (1733), I. 42. The Housekeeper … return’d immediately with a Holy-water pot and a Sprinkler.
1816. [see HOLY WATER 2].
1862. Borrow, Wild Wales, vi. Then drawing forth his sprinkler, he flung the holy water in the faces of the king and his people.
1896. trans. Huysman’s En Route, viii. 106. Dom Etienne took the sprinkler which a priest handed him.
3. A person who sprinkles.
1613. Purchas, Pilgrimage (1614), 150. The Merissœans or Merists, which were (as the name importeth) sprinklers of their holy-water.
1818. in Todd.
1843. Tizard, Brewing, Index 517. Sprinklers of malt, a majority. [Ibid., 68. Completely contradicting the assertion of the non-sprinklers.]
b. One who baptizes by sprinkling as opposed to immersion; an adherent of this practice.
1895. M. Mather, Idylls, 321 (E.D.D.). Betty were a dipper an’ I were a sprinkler.
1896. Ch. Times, 1 May, 505/1. Our reputation as ‘the sprinklers’ has been maintained … by the chaplains of the English congregations.
