▪ I. spret Sc. and north. dial.
Also sprett.
[Obscurely related to sprat n.3 See also spreat and sprit n.3]
A kind of rush, esp. the joint-leaved rush; coarse, reedy, or rush-like grass; a stalk or stem of this.
| 1397–8 Durham Acc. Rolls (Surtees) 215 Pro sprettis et stramine emp. pro tectura. 1777 Lightfoot Flora Scot. II. 1131 Juncus articulatus,..Sprett. 1794 Statist. Acc. Scot. XIII. 583 On part of it grows a coarse kind of grass called sprett, which is cut by the farmers for hay. 1808 in Jamieson. 1870 United Presbyt. Mag. 199 All the houses received a fresh covering of rushes or sprett every year. 1878 Proc. Berw. Nat. Club VIII. 452 The earliest plants that appear, which are known by the vernacular names of moss, ling, spret, &c. 1894 in Heslop Northumbld. Wds. |
Hence ˈspretty a., of the nature of spret; full of, producing or growing, spret.
| 1808 Forsyth Beauties Scotl. V. 298 Spretty coarse grass is not easily killed by frost. 1878 Proc. Berw. Nat. Club VIII. 453 Spretty-grasses, a general term for the succulent products of meadow or bog-land, but chiefly for the different rushes (Juncus) which are cut for bog-hay. 1882 J. Walker Jaunt to Auld Reekie 240 Our bard Through spretty fields his shining plough-shares drave. |
▪ II. spret
obs. var. sprit n.1, sprite n., obs. f. 3rd pers. sing. pres. ind. of spread v.