Citations:spring


 * 1678 — John Bunyan. The Pilgrim's Progress.
 * Christian now went to the spring, and drank thereof, to refresh himself [Isa. 49:10], and then began to go up the hill, saying —


 * 1843 — Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol.
 * He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve: and stopped.
 * Marley's Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first position, and presented the same problem to be worked all through, "Was it a dream or not?"
 * They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city rather seemed to spring up about them, and encompass them of its own act. But there they were, in the heart of it; on 'Change, amongst the merchants; who hurried up and down, and chinked the money in their pockets, and conversed in groups, and looked at their watches, and trifled thoughtfully with their great gold seals; and so forth, as Scrooge had seen them often.


 * is this really a use of spring, or of spring a plant?


 * 1819, James Hardy Vaux, "A New and Comprehensive Vocabulary of the Flash Language", Memoirs, Vol. II, s.v. "Plant":
 * To spring a plant, is to find any thing that has been concealed by another.