The quality or state of being spontaneous, or acting from native feeling, proneness, or temperament, without constraint or external force.

Proceeding from natural feeling, temperament, or disposition, or from a native internal proneness, readiness, or tendency, without constraint; as, a spontaneous gift or proposition.

A kind of half-pike, or halberd, formerly borne by inferior officers of the British infantry, and used in giving signals to the soldiers.

A spirit; a ghost; an apparition; a hobgoblin.

To wind on a spool or spools.

One who, or that which, spools.

To be driven steadily and swiftly, as before a strong wind; to be driven before the wind without any sail, or with only a part of the sails spread; to scud under bare poles.

To fish with a spoon bait.

Having the bill expanded and spatulate at the end.

Food that is, or must be, taken with a spoon; liquid food.

Any one of several species of wading birds of the genera Ajaja and Platalea, and allied genera, in which the long bill is broadly expanded and flattened at the tip.

Spray blown from the tops of waves during a gale at sea; also, snow driven in the wind at sea; -- written also spindrift.

A weak-minded or silly person; one who is foolishly fond.

The yautia.

The quantity which a spoon contains, or is able to contain; as, a teaspoonful; a tablespoonful.

In a spoony manner.

The mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia).

A gephyrean worm of the genus Thalassema, having a spoonlike proboscis.

Scurvy grass.

Same as Spooney.

To follow a spoor or trail.

Stars not included in any constellation; -- called also informed, or unformed, stars.

Sporadic.

Occurring singly, or apart from other things of the same kind, or in scattered instances; separate; single; as, a sporadic fireball; a sporadic case of disease; a sporadic example of a flower.

Sporadic.

In a sporadic manner.

The axis or receptacle in certain ferns (as Trichomanes), which bears the sporangia.

A spore case in the cryptogamous plants, as in ferns, etc.

One of the minute grains in flowerless plants, which are analogous to seeds, as serving to reproduce the species.

A sporidium.

Bearing sporidia.

A secondary spore, or a filament produced from a spore, in certain kinds of minute fungi. A spore.

Bearing or producing spores.

Spore formation. See Spore formation (b), under Spore.

A closed body or conceptacle containing one or more masses of spores or sporangia. A sporangium.

An asexual zooid, usually forming one of a series of larval forms in the agamic reproduction of various trematodes and other parasitic worms. The sporocyst generally develops from an egg, but in its turn produces other larvae by internal budding, or by the subdivision of a part or all of its contents into a number of minute germs. See Redia.

Reproduction by spores.

The growth or development of an animal or a zooid from a nonsexual germ.

A placenta. That alternately produced form of certain cryptogamous plants, as ferns, mosses, and the like, which is nonsexual, but produces spores in countless numbers. In ferns it is the leafy plant, in mosses the capsule. Cf. Oophore.

Having the nature of a sporophore.

In plants exhibiting alternation of generations, the generation which bears asexual spores; -- opposed to gametophyte. It is not clearly differentiated in the life cycle of the lower plants.

A hydrozoan reproductive zooid or gonophore which does not become medusoid in form or structure. See Illust. under Athecata. An early or simple larval stage of trematode worms and some other invertebrates, which is capable of reproducing other germs by asexual generation; a nurse; a redia.

An extensive division of parasitic Protozoa, which increase by sporulation. It includes the Gregarinida.

Same as Zoospore.

In certain Sporozoa, a small active, usually elongate, sickle-shaped or somewhat amoeboid spore, esp. one of those produced by division of the passive spores into which the zygote divides. The sporozoites reproduce asexually.

A large purse or pouch made of skin with the hair or fur on, worn in front of the kilt by Highlanders when in full dress.

To divert; to amuse; to make merry; -- used with the reciprocal pronoun.

Sportiveness.

Of or pertaining to sports; used in sports.

One who sports; a sportsman.

Full of sport; merry; frolicsome; full of jesting; indulging in mirth or play; playful; wanton; as, a sportful companion.

Of, pertaining to, or engaging in, sport or sports; exhibiting the character or conduct of one who, or that which, sports.

In sport; sportively.

Tending to, engaged in, or provocative of, sport; gay; frolicsome; playful; merry.

Without sport or mirth; joyless.

A little person or creature engaged in sports or in play.

One who pursues the sports of the field; one who hunts, fishes, etc.

The practice of sportsmen; skill in field sports.

A gift; a present; a prize; hence, an alms; a largess.

Subsisting on alms or charitable contributions.

The act or process of forming spores; spore formation. See Illust. of Bacillus, (b).

A small spore; a spore.

Producing sporules.

Lit., being on the spot, or place; on hand for immediate delivery after sale; -- said of commodities; as, spot wheat.

Without a spot; especially, free from reproach or impurity; pure; untainted; innocent; as, a spotless mind; spotless behavior.

The projected spot or circle of light used to illuminate brilliantly a single person or object or group on the stage, leaving the rest of the stage more or less unilluminated.

Marked with spots; as, a spotted garment or character.

State or quality of being spotted.

One who spots.

The state or quality of being spotty.

Full of spots; marked with spots.

Espousal.

Marriage; nuptials; espousal; -- generally used in the plural; as, the spousals of Hippolita.

To wed; to espouse.

Adultery.

Destitute of a spouse; unmarried.

A wife or bride.

That through which anything spouts; a discharging lip, pipe, or orifice; a tube, pipe, or conductor of any kind through which a liquid is poured, or by which it is conveyed in a stream from one place to another; as, the spout of a teapot; a spout for conducting water from the roof of a building.

One who, or that which, spouts.

A marine animal that spouts water; -- applied especially to certain bivalve mollusks, like the long clams (Mya), which spout, or squirt out, water when retiring into their holes.

Having no spout.

Any marine gastropod shell of the genus Apporhais having an elongated siphon. See Illust. under Rostrifera.

Quick; lively; alert.

p. p. of Spread.

imp. of Spread.

See Sprack, a.

The act or result of spraining; lameness caused by spraining; as, a bad sprain of the wrist.

The dung of an otter.

imp. of Spring.

A small European herring (Clupea sprattus) closely allied to the common herring and the pilchard; -- called also garvie. The name is also applied to small herring of different kinds. A California surf-fish (Rhacochilus toxotes); -- called also alfione, and perch.

To spread and stretch the body or limbs carelessly in a horizontal position; to lie with the limbs stretched out ungracefully.

The position or state resulting from sprawling; as, he sat on the couch in a sprawl; uncontrolled urban sprawl.

Small branches of a tree; twigs; sprays.

To let fall in the form of spray.

a small can containing a liquid under pressure of a gas that forces the liquid out in an aerosol form when the valve is opened.

a container for liquid, fitted with a conduit that can be supplied with compressed air, desiged to allowing the contents to be sprayed as an aerosol. Such devices are used to spray paints and various other liquids.

paint packaged in a spray can.

To paint (a surface) by means of a spray, using a spray can or spray gun.

See Dashboard, n., 2 (b).

One that sprays; any instrument for vaporizing and spraying liquids.

imp. p. p. of Spread, v.

To assume a spread-eagled position; -- it may be done reclining, for relaxation, or momentarily, as an exhibitionary maneuver in a sport.

Being in a position with the arms and legs extended fully.

One who, or that which, spreads, expands, or propagates.

Increasingly.

Movables of an inferior description; especially, such as have been collected by depredation.

A merry frolic; especially, a drinking frolic; a carousal.

To sprinkle; to scatter.

p. p. of Sprenge. Sprinkled.

Thrush.

p. p. of Sprenge. Sprinkled.

To mark or adorn with the representation of small branches; to work with sprigs; as, to sprig muslin.

Having sprigs.

Full of sprigs or small branches.

To haunt, as a spright.

Full of spirit or of life; spirited; earnest; vivacious; lively; brisk; nimble; gay.

Destitute of life; dull; sluggish.

The quality or state of being sprightly; liveliness; life; briskness; vigor; activity; gayety; vivacity.

Sprightlike, or spiritlike; lively; brisk; animated; vigorous; airy; gay; as, a sprightly youth; a sprightly air; a sprightly dance.

The pintail duck; -- called also sprig, and spreet-tail. The sharp-tailed grouse.