sprite
/spɹaɪt/noun, verb
sprite is spelled S-P-R-I-T-E: 6 letters and one syllable. It appears 1.5 times per million words in written English, the 22,651st most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, sprite means “A spirit; a soul; a shade” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of sprite is sprites.
How many letters and syllables are in sprite?
| Letters | 6: S-P-R-I-T-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1.5 times per million words; the 22,651st most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is sprite?
Sprite appears 1.5 times per million words in written English, the 22,651st most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce sprite?
- /spɹaɪt/
Sprite has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-sprite.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with sprite?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as sprite.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: priest, stripe, esprit, sitrep.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of sprite
- sprites plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- spriting participle, present
- sprited participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does sprite mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 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.
- 4
A two-dimensional image or animation that is integrated into a larger scene.
- 5
A large electrical discharge that occurs high above the cumulonimbus cloud of an active thunderstorm, which appears as a luminous red or orange flash.
- 6
The green woodpecker, or yaffle (Picus viridis).
- 7
Any of various African damselflies of the genus Pseudagrion (of which, Australian species are named riverdamsels).
- 8
A spayed female ferret.
verb
- 1
informalTo draw a (specifically) pixel art sprite.
sprited the new NPCs
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Sprite in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| German | Geist, Erscheinung, Seele , Kobold, Elf, Elfe |
| Spanish | duendecillo |
| French | farfadet |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does sprite come from?
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.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).