sprite

Any of various supernatural beings, loosely defined:

Noun

  1. Any of various supernatural beings, loosely defined:
    • He who torments the chafer's sprite Weaves a bower in endless night. - 1803, William Blake, Auguries of Innocence:

    1. A spirit; a soul; a shade.

    2. An apparition; a ghost.

    3. An elf, fairy, or goblin; one with a small humanlike physical body.

  2. A two-dimensional image or animation that is integrated into a larger scene.
  3. A large electrical discharge that occurs high above the cumulonimbus cloud of an active thunderstorm, which appears as a luminous red or orange flash.
  4. The green woodpecker, or yaffle (Picus viridis).
  5. Any of various African damselflies of the genus Pseudagrion (of which, Australian species are named riverdamsels).
  6. A spayed female ferret.
  7. Alternative form of spright (“frame of mind, disposition”).

Origin

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.

Forms

sprites spright

Wikipedia

sprite

Synonyms

goblin

Related

sprightly

Derived

metasprite pool sprite red sprite resprite sprelve Spridget sprite comic spriteful sprite halo spritehood spritelike spritely spritemap spriter spritesheet spritework spritish water sprite

Verb

  1. To draw a (specifically) pixel art sprite.
    • sprited the new NPCs

Forms

sprites spriting sprited spright