Emily Dickinson Lexicon

SPRING, v.t.

1. To start or rouse, as game; to cause to rise from the earth or from a covert; as, to spring a pheasant.
2. To produce quickly or unexpectedly. The nurse, surpris'd with fright / Starts up and leaves her bed, and springs a light. – Dryden. [I have never heard such an expression.]
3. To start; to contrive, or to produce, or propose on a sudden; to produce unexpectedly. The friends to the cause sprang a new project. – Swift. [In lieu of spring, the people in the United States generally use start; to start a new project.]
4. To cause to explode; as, to spring a mine. – Addison.
5. To burst; to cause to open; as, to spring a leak. When it is said, a vessel has sprung a leak, the meaning is, the leak has then commenced.
6. To crack; as, to spring a mast or a yard.
7. To cause to close suddenly, as the parts of a trap; as, to spring a trap. To spring a butt, in seaman's language, to loosen the end of a plank in a ship's bottom. To spring a leak, to commence leaking; to begin to leak. To spring the luff, when a vessel yields to the helm, and sails nearer to the wind than before. – Mar. Dict. To spring a fence, for to leap a fence, is not a phrase used in this country. – Thomson. To spring an arch, to set off, begin, or commence an arch from an abutment or pier.