sprinkler
Americannoun
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any of various devices for sprinkling, as a watering pot, a container of water with a perforated top used to sprinkle clothes before ironing, or especially a perforated ring or small stand with a revolving nozzle to which a hose is attached for watering a lawn with a fine, even spray.
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a person who sprinkles.
verb (used with object)
noun
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a device perforated with small holes that is attached to a garden hose or watering can and used to spray plants, lawns, etc, with water
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a person or thing that sprinkles
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See sprinkler system
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of sprinkler
Explanation
A sprinkler is a garden device that sprays water onto your grass or plants. You can attach a small lawn sprinkler to a hose in your yard when your flowers are looking droopy. Sprinklers are mainly used to irrigate, or provide water, to plants. There are complex systems of sprinklers that can be installed in the ground for a large area, like a public park or an estate's acres of lawns. The more common type of sprinkler hooks up to a hose and can be moved wherever it's needed — including in the middle of a yard for kids to run through in their bathing suits.
Vocabulary lists containing sprinkler
"Water at Work"
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1.7.B Using Ice to Keep Orange Groves Warm
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Sprinkler outages, patchy information and anxious parents in overheating homes point to a city behind the curve.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 28, 2026
Sprinkler systems can cost north of $100,000, for example.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 2, 2026
For decades scientists have been trying to solve Feynman's Sprinkler Problem: How does a sprinkler running in reverse -- in which the water flows into the device rather than out of it -- work?
From Science Daily • Jan. 29, 2024
“A typical fire is not like the movies where sprinklers go off everywhere,” says Nancy Hammond, owner of Reliance Fire Protection in Seattle and chair of the Fire Sprinkler Advisory Board of Puget Sound.
From Seattle Times • Sep. 21, 2023
“Good, good, good!” squealed Bartek the Razor, rubbing his hands, and running from Sprinkler to Maciek like a shuttle thrown from one side of the loom to the other.
From Pan Tadeusz Or, the Last Foray in Lithuania; a Story of Life Among Polish Gentlefolk in the Years 1811 and 1812 by Noyes, George Rapall
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
