Now dial. and rare. [Cf. SPIRT sb.3] A shoot or sprout.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 27. The Garden Sperages … send out at first certaine greene spurts or buds peeping forth of the ground. Ibid., 196. The same yong springs eaten … in a salad, in manner of the tender crops and spurts of the Colewort,… do lasten the teeth.
