[f. SPRINKLE v.1]
1. Scattering small drops or particles.
In quot. 1567 perh. ‘sparkling,’ f. SPRINKLE v.2
1567. Turberv., Epit., Upon Death of R. Edwards, 78 b. Welles … Whose sprinckling springs and golden streames ere this thou well didst knowe.
1621. G. Sandys, Ovid’s Met. (1626), 110. Back to the shore she casts a heauy eye;… And from the sprinkling waues … shrinks her trembling feete.
1716. Gay, Trivia, II. 421. When … dex’trous damsels twirl the sprinkling mop.
1757. Dyer, Fleece, I. 464. Lo! in the sprinkling clouds your bleating hills Rejoice with herbage.
1859. Tennyson, in Ld. H. Tennyson, Mem. (1897), I. 456. A few sprinkling springlets by the wayside.
2. Falling in scattered drops.
1632. Lithgow, Trav., IV. 137. [Her] pittifull lookes, and sprinkling teares.
1666. W. Boghurst, Loimographia (1894), 29. There being no raine at all, but a litle sprinkling Showre.
Hence Sprinklingly adv.
1615. H. Crooke, Body of Man, 898. They offer also small shootes sprinklingly vnto the skin of the chest.
1657. J. Sergeant, Schism Dispach’t, 286. He speaks his non-sence, sleightly, sprinklingly.
