sprunt

• (make romantic advances): splunt

Apparently a variation of sprent or sprint. This term originated as a Victorian-era Scots word in the Roxburgh region.^[1]

• IPA^(key): /spɹʌnt/
• Rhymes: -ʌnt

sprunt (third-person singular simple present sprunts, present participle sprunting, simple past and past participle sprunted)

1. (obsolete, chiefly regional) To make quick or convulsive movements; to start, to jump. [17th–20th c.]
   • 1786 August 16, Hester Thrale Piozzi, Thraliana:

     They acted a Tragedy at Padua when I was there last June 1786 I think: the Actors struggled & bounced, and sprunted as if in Convulsions […] .

2. (Scotland, intransitive, now rare) To court, flirt, or make romantic advances;^[2] esp. after dusk and under the cover of darkness,^[3] sometimes among haystacks.^[4] [from 19th c.]
   • 1823, Kennedy, James, Poems and Songs‎^[1]:

     To a laft amang some hay; Like others i' the splunting way.

   • 1825, Jamieson, J., Etymological Dictionary of Scottish Language Suppl.‎^[2]:

     Sprunt, to run among the stacks after the girls at night.

   • 1901, Trotter, R. De B., Galloway Gossip‎^[3]:

     A great ploy for the young swankies tae rin a' athort the country at nicht spluntin.

   • 2016 July 31, Grandiloquent Word of the Day:

     I’m too forswunke after sprunting all night, I’m getting too old for such mollynogging shenanigans!

   1. To seek to gain the affections of a person. [with after]

sprunt (plural sprunts)

1. (obsolete) A sudden movement; a leap or jump. [17th–19th c.]
2. (obsolete) Something bouncy or perky. [18th c.]
3. A steep road, hill, or incline.
   • 1788, Marshall, Rural Economy of Yorkshire‎^[4], page 695:

     “Lang slaunting sprunts,” tall sloping hills or “land-spurs”

sprunt (comparative more sprunt, superlative most sprunt)

1. (obsolete) Active; lively; vigorous. [17th–19th c.]
   • 1662, Henry More, An Antidote Against Atheism, Book I, A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More, p. 35:

     "As for that little sprunt piece of the Brain which they call the Conarion..."

2. Steep or sharp in ascent.
   • 1896, Wright, Joseph, The English Dialect Dictionary: R-S‎^[5], page 695:

     Ya’ll mannish ti trunn’l yersen t’best hauf o’ t’way, bud efter that ya’ll finnd it a bit sprunt [said to a cyclist]. (You’ll manage to trundle yourself for the better half of the way, but after that, you’ll find it a bit sprunt.)

• prunts