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spray

/spreɪ//spreɪ/·verb, noun
to scatter liquid in a cloud of fine drops; the drops themselves
Fig. 1 — The sprinkler wakes and starts its slow no from side to side, and what leaves it is not water so much as weather — a fan of drops, dozens at a time, arcing up and falling fine as breath.
01Definition

To spray is to send liquid out as many small drops at once — a hose with a thumb over it, paint from a can, the sea throwing its top at a cliff. One source, a whole area touched: that scatter is the word's core, and the noun rides along for the droplets themselves (sea spray, a spray of perfume). English also keeps a second, unrelated noun — a spray of flowers, a cut branch of blossom — from a different Germanic root entirely. The verb takes a regular past, sprayed, and pairs with on and with: spray paint on a wall, spray a field with something.

02In use
  • iShe sprayed the seedlings gently, and the drops began to gather on every leaf.
  • iiSea spray reached the top of the cliff whenever a wave hit the rocks below.
  • iiiThe council sprayed the whole verge in minutes — one nozzle, a wide arc, done.
03Collocations
  • spray paint
  • sea spray
  • spray with water
  • a fine spray
  • pepper spray

Family spray (noun) · sprayer (noun)

04Relations

=scatter, sprinkle, mist, spatter, shower

≠collect, gather, soak up

06TOEFL & IELTS

Everyday and technical at once: IELTS process diagrams use it for irrigation and coating steps ('the parts are sprayed with sealant'), and reading passages on oceans reach for sea spray. The past tense is the regular sprayed — do not let sprained (an injured ankle) intrude, a real learner slip. Note the pattern shift: you spray water ON a surface, or spray a surface WITH water; both are correct and the exams accept either.

07Asked
What is the past tense of spray?
Sprayed — fully regular: spray, sprayed, sprayed, spraying. The slip to watch is sprained, which belongs to sprain, a twisted joint: you sprayed the roses but sprained an ankle. One letter of difference, and spell-checkers will not catch the swap because both are real words. There is no irregular form lurking anywhere in the family.
What does sea spray mean?
The fine salt droplets that waves throw into the air when they break — the mist you taste on a harbour wall. In this sense spray is an uncountable noun: plenty of sea spray, never 'sea sprays'. Ocean-science passages give it a bigger job than flavour: spray carries salt aerosols into the atmosphere, where they help clouds form.
Is spray a noun or a verb?
Both, and they divide the work: the verb is the scattering (spray the wall), the noun is what gets scattered — the cloud of droplets itself (a spray of perfume, clouds of spray at the foot of the falls). The noun is usually uncountable when it means airborne drops, but countable when it means one burst: a quick spray of deodorant.
Why is a bunch of flowers called a spray?
By coincidence, not by droplets. The florist's spray — a single cut branch with its blossoms, or a small arrangement — apparently comes from a separate old word for a slender twig or shoot; the liquid spray arrived by a different route entirely. The two forms long ago fell together as one spelling, which is why a wedding order can include both a spray of orchids and a spray of perfume.
What is the difference between spray, sprinkle and splash?
Drop size and manner. A spray is many FINE drops delivered at once, usually with force or a nozzle. A sprinkle is fewer, larger drops scattered loosely — rain can sprinkle, you sprinkle water by hand. A splash is liquid displaced in one rough mass, with sound. In the scene above, the sprinkler earns its name colloquially but does the verb's true work: a pressurised fan of fine droplets is spray.
What is the difference between spray and splay?
One letter and a world: spray scatters liquid as droplets, while splay means to spread the ends of something apart — fingers splay, tripod legs splay. Liquid sprays; rigid things splay — if the ends of a thing fan apart, splay is your verb; if droplets fly, it is spray.