Other forms: spurts
A spurt is a sudden short gush, or a burst of speed. A spurt of blood, put on a spurt, a growth spurt.
Both senses share the shape: something short, sudden and not sustained. A growth spurt in adolescence can add ten centimetres in a year. A final spurt in a race is the effort saved for the last stretch.
1nounspurtA sudden short gush, or a burst of speed.
“When he turned the tap, a spurt of brown water shot out and splashed the wall.”
spurt is a burst.
From an older form spirt, related to sprout, from Old English spryttan, to sprout or spring forth.
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)per- — to strew, sow, sprinkle
Proto-West Germanic
*spruttjan
Old English
spryttan
Middle English
sprytten
English, today
spurt
Built from
From earlier spirt, sprit#Etymology 2 (“to sprout”), from Middle English sprytten, from Old English spryttan, from Proto-West Germanic spruttjan, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European (s)per- (“to strew, sow, sprinkle”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA