The story
- Middle Low German · derived fromsprik
- Middle English · inherited fromsprig
- English todaysprig
From Middle English sprig, sprigge, of uncertain origin. Perhaps from Middle Low German sprik, spricke (“a dry, easily broken twig that has fallen from a tree; sprig”). Compare also dialectal English sprag (“sprig, twig”), English spray (“branch”), Old English spræc (“a shoot”), German Low German Spricke, Sprick (“dry branch, twig”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.