Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various small marine food fishes of the genus Sprattus, especially S. sprattus of the northeast Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas, eaten fresh or smoked and often canned as a sardine.
- noun Any of various other fishes of the family Clupeidae, such as a young herring.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A name of various species of rushes, as Juncus articulatus, etc.
- noun plural Small wood.
- noun A small coin.
- noun A small clupeoid fish of European waters, Clupea (Harengula) sprattus.
- noun A name of other fishes
- To fish for sprats.
- noun Same as
thread-herring .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A small European herring (
Clupea sprattus ) closely allied to the common herring and the pilchard; -- called alsogarvie . The name is also applied to small herring of different kinds. - noun A California surf-fish (
Rhacochilus toxotes ); -- called alsoalfione , andperch . - noun (Zoöl.) the red-throated diver; -- so called from its fondness for sprats. See
Diver . - noun (Zoöl.), [Prov. Eng.] The red-throated diver. See
Diver . - noun (Zoöl.) the kittiwake gull.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Any of various small,
herring -like, marine fish in the family Clupeidae.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun small fatty European fish; usually smoked or canned like sardines
- noun small herring processed like a sardine
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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That most extensively employed in this country is the sprat, which is occasionally caught in enormous quantities on the Norfolk coast, and used as an application for turnips.
Elements of Agricultural Chemistry Thomas Anderson
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Even Barack Obama might think that a very fat sprat to catch a rather bony mackerel.
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They save the evil gods for the DMG since no right thinking young sprat would want their PC to worship one of them, but they do list them – Asmodeus, Bane, Gruumsh, Lolth, Tiamat, Vecna, and newcomers Torog (Underdark) and Zehir (dark, poison, assassins – Pyremius and Beltar merged).
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There is Princess Gloriana amid sea demigods with conch-shell trumpets and mer-people and fishes of every size from sprat to leviathan.
Nutrition 2010
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Truth be told, everything passed me by in the 1980's because that was our three babies in four years decade and mostly I was either a beached whale or a frazzled sprat.
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But ever since I was a sprat I have been given this vague half-formed yet tremendously potent feeling that rock music meant something.
Archive 2009-06-14 Sean Craven 2009
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I loved his robot books and Lucky Starr novels when I was a sprat but as an adult, eh.
I Really Shouldn't Do This: The Guardian's Science Fiction And Fantasy Novel List Sean Craven 2009
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Glissaundra is my godmother, bless her, and when I was a sprat she once gave me a jar filled with a powder that she said would restore things to their true forms.
From The Valley Of Lost Projects: Princess Lucinda And The Missing Moon Sean Craven 2009
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Lud-in-the-Mist was one of my very first fantasy books read it years ago when I was but a sprat and nothing has ever quite come up to that standard.
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I loved his robot books and Lucky Starr novels when I was a sprat but as an adult, eh.
Archive 2009-04-05 Sean Craven 2009
qms commented on the word sprat
A young, small, or insignificant person.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
February 22, 2015