sprat

sprat

English

a European sprat (Sprattus sprattus)

Etymology

From Middle English sprotte, from Old English sprot. Older source is unknown. Cognate with German Sprotte, Dutch sprot. Compare sprout.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /spɹæt/

• Audio (Berkshire, England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æt

Noun

sprat (plural sprat or sprats)

1. Any of various small, herring-like, marine fish in the genus Sprattus, in the family Clupeidae.
2. Similar fish of other genera
3. (UK, slang, obsolete) A sixpence.
   • 1859, Snowden's magistrates assistant (page 90)

     The price of a case (five shillings piece bad) from the smasher is about one shilling; an alderman (two and sixpence) about sixpence; a peg (shilling) about threepence; a downer or sprat (sixpence) about twopence.

Derived terms

• a sprat to catch a mackerel
• European sprat (Sprattus sprattus)
• slender sprat (Spratelloides gracilis)
• spratlike

Translations

any of various small marine fish in the genus Sprattus

Bulgarian: хамсия f (hamsija), цаца f (caca) Czech: šprot m Albanian: papalinë f Dutch: sprot (nl) m Esperanto: sproto Estonian: kilu (et), sprott (when oiled) Faroese: brislingur m Finnish: kilohaili (fi), anjovis (fi), sardelli (fi) (no unifying term) French: sprat (fr) m Galician: trancho (gl) m German: Sprotte (de) f Greek: παπαλίνα f (papalína) Ancient: μαίνη f (maínē) Hungarian: sprotni Indonesian: japuh Irish: bioránach m, maghar m, salán m, sprot m, stuifín m Italian: spratto (it) m, papalina (it) f Latin: maena f Maori: kupae Norwegian: Bokmål: brisling m Nynorsk: brisling m Persian: کیلکا‎ (fa) (kilkâ) Polish: szprot (pl) m, szprotka (pl) f Portuguese: espadilha (pt) f Romanian: sprot Russian: ки́лька (ru) f (kílʹka), шпрот (ru) m (šprot) Scots: garvie Scottish Gaelic: garbhag f Serbo-Croatian: Cyrillic: слеђица f Roman: sleđica f Spanish: espadín (es) m Swedish: skarpsill (sv) c Turkish: çaça (tr) Yiddish: שפּראָט‎ m (shprot)

See also

• pilchard
• sardine

References

• (sixpence): 1873, John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary

Anagrams

• S trap, TRAPS, parts, prats, rapts, strap, tarps, traps

---

French

Noun

sprat m (plural sprats)

1. sprat

Further reading

• “sprat”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

---

Serbo-Croatian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sprât/

Noun

sprȁt m (Cyrillic spelling спра̏т)

1. floor, story/storey (level)

Declension

Declension of sprat

	singular	plural
nominative	sprat	spratovi
genitive	sprata	spratova
dative	spratu	spratovima
accusative	sprat	spratove
vocative	sprate	spratovi
locative	spratu	spratovima
instrumental	spratom	spratovima

Quotations

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:спрат.