Other forms: sprites
A sprite is a small light spirit of air or water. A water sprite, sprites in the wood, a mischievous sprite.
It is smaller and lighter than a fairy in most tellings, and it is attached to a place rather than to a court. In computing, a sprite is a small movable image drawn over a background, which is how almost every two-dimensional game was built. Note sprightly, which means lively and comes from the same word; and that sprite and spirit are the same word, one worn down through French.
1nounspriteA small light spirit of air or water.
“In the old tale, a water sprite lived in the stream and played tricks on travellers.”
2nounmovableA small movable image in a computer game.
“In the old video game, each character was a tiny sprite that moved across the screen.”
sprite is a small spirit or image.
Old French esprit comes from Latin spiritus, breath or spirit. Sprite and spirit are the same word arriving twice, and sprightly is sprite plus -ly with an inserted g that belongs to nobody.
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)peys-
Latin
spīritus
Old French
esprit — spirit
Middle English
sprite
English, today
sprite
From Middle English sprite, spryt, spreyte, from Old French esprit (“spirit”), from Latin spīritus. a doublet of spirit and spiritus and spirytus and spright and esprit. computer graphics First used by Danny Hillis at Texas Instruments in the late 1970s. meteorology An acronym for Stratospheric Perturbations Resulting from Intense Thunderstorm Electrification.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA