Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A military engine, resembling the ballista, used in Europe in the middle ages.
  • noun A young person; a youth; especially, a young man.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete An active, springy young man.
  • noun An ancient military engine for casting stones and arrows by means of a spring.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete An ancient military engine for launching stones and arrows by means of a spring.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old French espringale; of Teutonic origin, akin to English spring.

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Examples

  • To which provoking words, one amongst them, called Forgier, an honest fellow of his person and a notable springal, made answer very calmly thus: How long is it since you have got horns, that you are become so proud?

    Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel

  • To which provoking words, one amongst them, called Forgier, an honest fellow of his person and a notable springal, made answer very calmly thus: How long is it since you have got horns, that you are become so proud?

    Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel

  • A javelin, tarred and flaming, snapped from some springal, thudded into the stem castle.

    Guardsman Of Gor

  • A set of javelins, five of them, from a springal, struck from their guides by a forward-springing plank, raked the interior wall of the starboard rowing frame.

    Guardsman Of Gor

  • "Not I, by the light of Heaven!" answered Prince John: "this same springal, [83-15] who conceals his name and despises our proffered hospitality, hath already gained one prize, and may now afford to let others have their turn."

    Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6

  • Sam, rising to his feet, his eyes twinkling and his mask of humor on again; "sees this masked springal" -- the Hon.

    A Knight of the Cumberland

  • "Ha, my young springal! well met, in sooth," cried the foremost of the band, laying a firm hand upon the boy's shoulder.

    In the Wars of the Roses A Story for the Young

  • Prince John; ` ` this same springal, who conceals his name, and despises our proffered hospitality, hath already gained one prize, and may now afford to let others have their turn. ''

    Ivanhoe

  • Sam, rising to his feet, his eyes twinkling and his mask of humor on again; "sees this masked springal" -- the Hon.

    A Knight of the Cumberland

  • PHILEMON was used to confess how, in the fire of his callow youth and fine flower of his lustie springal days, he had been stung with murderous frenzie at view of a certaine picture of Apelles, the which in those times was showed in a temple.

    The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche 1909

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