spright

plural sprights

1. obsoleteSpirit; mind; soul; state of mind; mood.

   Well may I ween, your grief is wondrous great; / For wondrous great griefe groneth in my ſpright, / Whiles thus I heare you of your ſorrowes treat.

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 40, page 100

   1 more example

   Who comming to that ſowle-diſeaſed knight, / Could hardly him intreat, to tell his grief: / Which knowne, and all that noyd his heauie ſpright, / Well ſearcht, eftſoones he gan apply relief.

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 24, page 141

2. obsoleteA supernatural being; a spirit; a shade; an apparition; a ghost.

   And forth he cald out of deepe darknes dredd / Legions of Sprights, the which like litle flyes / Fluttring about his euerdamned hedd, [...]

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 38, page 13

   1 more example

   To thee, O Father, Sonne, and ſacred Spright. / One true, eternall, euerlaſting king, / To Chriſtes deere mother Marie virgin bright, / Pſalmes of thankeſgiuing and of praiſe they ſing, [...]

   1600, [Torquato Tasso], “The Eleuenth Booke of Godfrey of Bulloigne”, in Edward Fairefax [i.e., Edward Fairfax], transl., Godfrey of Bulloigne, or The Recouerie of Ierusalem. […], London: […] Ar[nold] Hatfield, for I[saac] Iaggard and M[atthew] Lownes, →OCLC, stanza 7, page 196

3. obsoleteA kind of short arrow.

present singular third person sprights · participle present sprighting · participle past sprighted · past sprighted

1. obsoleteTo haunt.

   I am sprighted with a fool ; Frighted , and anger'd worse

   1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]