sprite - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
English
Noun
sprite (plural sprites)
- (mythology) Any of various supernatural beings, loosely defined:
- A spirit; a soul; a shade.
- ✤ He who torments the chafer’s sprite
Weaves a bower in endless night.1- An apparition; a ghost.
- An elf, fairy, or goblin; one with a small humanlike physical body.
- (computer graphics) A two-dimensional image or animation that is integrated into a larger scene.
- (meteorology) A large electrical discharge that occurs high above the cumulonimbus cloud of an active thunderstorm, which appears as a luminous red or orange flash.
- The green woodpecker, or yaffle (Picus viridis).
- (entomology) Any of various African damselflies of the genus Pseudagrion (of which, Australian species are named riverdamsels).
- A spayed female ferret.
- (obsolete) Alternative form of spright (“frame of mind, disposition”).
Verb
sprite (third-person singular simple present sprites, present participle spriting, simple past and past participle sprited)
- (art, informal) To draw a (specifically) pixel art sprite.
- ✤ * sprited the new NPCs*
Etymology
From Middle English sprite, spryt, spreyte, from Old French esprit (“spirit”), from Latin spīritus. Doublet of spirit, spiritus, spirytus, spright, and esprit.
(computer graphics): First used by Danny Hillis at Texas Instruments in the late 1970s.
(meteorology): An acronym for Stratospheric Perturbations Resulting from Intense Thunderstorm Electrification.
Pronunciation
- enPR: sprīt, IPA: /spɹaɪt/
- Rhymes: -aɪt
- Audio (Southern England): 🔊
Printed 2026-07-17.
(echo:: @ ⌗)
Footnotes
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1803, William Blake, Auguries of Innocence: ↩