sprat
Americannoun
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a species of herring, Clupea sprattus, of the eastern North Atlantic.
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a small or inconsequential person or thing.
noun
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a small marine food fish, Clupea sprattus, of the NE Atlantic Ocean and North Sea: family Clupeidae (herrings) See also brisling
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any of various small or young herrings
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of sprat
1590–1600; variant of earlier sprot, Middle English, Old English (cognate with German Sprott ); apparently same word as Old English sprott sprout, twig (for the two meanings cf. sprag 2); akin to Old English spryttan to sprout
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.
The wild fish studied included Pacific and Peruvian anchoveta, and Atlantic herring, mackerel, sprat and blue whiting -- which are all marketed and consumed as seafood.
From Science Daily • Mar. 20, 2024
He added that minke whales feed on sand eels, sprat, young herring, other "shoaling small fishes" and zooplankton and there "must be good food for this animal to bring it into this area".
From BBC • Apr. 10, 2023
The frigate was determined to steal the tern’s meal, the tern equally determined not to part with its hard-earned sprat.
From New York Times • Oct. 8, 2015
Researchers can spend years unpicking the factors that control the numbers of Maine lobster, or sprat in the Baltic Sea.
From Nature • Mar. 16, 2015
I’m a suspicious old man, and I said when he sent me that watch, a year after his father and mother died, ‘It’s a sprat to catch a herring!’
From The Mynns' Mystery by Fenn, George Manville
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.
