[a. early Scand. *sprinta (ON. and Icel. spretta, Sw. spritta): cf. SPRENT v.]
† 1. intr. To dart or spring. Obs.–1
1566. Is. W., Copy of a Letter, etc. xxix. Thy felowes chance that late such prety shift did make; That he from Fishers hooke did sprint before he could him take.
2. a. dial. (See quot.)
1862. C. C. Robinson, Dial. Leeds, 418. Sprint, to run on the toes. The sort of running practised in-doors.
b. To run, row, etc., at full speed, esp. for a short distance; to race in this manner.
1871–. [implied in Sprinting vbl. sb.].
1889. H. O’Reilly, 50 Yrs. on Trail, 177. By running and walking, or rather sprinting, the whole time.
1897. Scotsman, 7 Oct., 7/1. He … sprinted at a good pace to where the observatory pathway commences.
transf. 1899. C. Scott, Drama of Yesterday, I. xvi. 555. If a journalist has trained himself to ‘sprint,’ he is naturally employed, when occasion serves, on other departments of the paper.
3. Sc. To sprout or grow. (Cf. SPRENT v. 1 d.)
a. 1878. H. Ainslie, Pilgr. Land of Burns (1892), 303. Rare plants that beautify the Spring Aft sprint frae roughest spot.
4. dial. To spirt in small drops. Also trans., to sprinkle.
1855–. in dial. glossaries (Cumb., Yks., Notts., Linc.).
Hence Sprinting vbl. sb.
1871. ‘Stonehenge,’ Brit. Rur. Sports (ed. 9), II. VII. i. 539/1. At Sheffield, the birthplace and nursery of professional sprinting.
1884. H.cC. Bunner, in Harper’s Mag., Jan., 302/2. They would do well to go in for easy, steady, long-distance running rather than for sprinting and that sort of violent exercise.
