Standard Lemma guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
verb
To promote a thing or idea to another person, usually informally.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: Australia, transitive
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
Unknown, likely Germanic. Compare Dutch spraak (“speech”), spreek (“speak”), spreuk (“saying”), sprook (“a story, fiction, tale, or false idea”). First recorded in the late 1890s and early 1900s, suggesting a possible derivation from Afrikaans (i.e. brought back by soldiers returning from the Boer War). With the exception of a few early uses of sprook, the word's spelling has been fixed since it first entered the language. The uncommon ⟨ui⟩ digraph provides further evidence for an Afrikaans or Dutch origin.
Across languages
1 source translations are retained for this English entry.
