1
as in fairies
an imaginary being usually having a small human form and magical powers
the child insisted that he'd seen a sprite hiding in the garden
Synonyms & Similar Words
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2
as in spirits
the soul of a dead person thought of especially as appearing to living people
told hair-raising stories of sprites and spectral ships
Synonyms & Similar Words
Example Sentences
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
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Recent Examples of sprites
Seasonal sprites flit and flutter, providing transitional scenes, hinting at mystical elements whizzing all around within this otherwise very human plot.
—
Lauren Warnecke,
Chicago Tribune,
5 June 2026
Since the Neo Geo’s scaling hardware can efficiently stretch those sprites vertically without much overhead, the raycasting data can be quickly converted into a chunky approximation of a first-person view.
—
Kyle Orland,
ArsTechnica,
2 June 2026
This livestream is well worth a watch, with active chat users often sharing timestamps of meteor sightings and occasionally rarer phenomena like atmospheric sprites!
—
Daisy Dobrijevic,
Space.com,
21 Apr. 2026
On Friday, April 10, when those winged sprites took to the War Memorial Opera House stage for a seven-performance run, the whole tartan-and-gossamer fable felt more alive than ever.
—
Rachel Howard,
San Francisco Chronicle,
11 Apr. 2026
The video chip’s control registers, screen bitmaps, text-screen data, default and custom character sets, sprites, and color information all live in different locations scattered across memory, with some data actually living in separate RAM and ROM chips.
—
Stephen Cass,
IEEE Spectrum,
28 Sep. 2025
Lauren Warnecke,
Chicago Tribune,
5 June 2026
Since the Neo Geo’s scaling hardware can efficiently stretch those sprites vertically without much overhead, the raycasting data can be quickly converted into a chunky approximation of a first-person view.
—
Kyle Orland,
ArsTechnica,
2 June 2026
This livestream is well worth a watch, with active chat users often sharing timestamps of meteor sightings and occasionally rarer phenomena like atmospheric sprites!
—
Daisy Dobrijevic,
Space.com,
21 Apr. 2026
On Friday, April 10, when those winged sprites took to the War Memorial Opera House stage for a seven-performance run, the whole tartan-and-gossamer fable felt more alive than ever.
—
Rachel Howard,
San Francisco Chronicle,
11 Apr. 2026
The video chip’s control registers, screen bitmaps, text-screen data, default and custom character sets, sprites, and color information all live in different locations scattered across memory, with some data actually living in separate RAM and ROM chips.
—
Stephen Cass,
IEEE Spectrum,
28 Sep. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for sprites
Noun
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Lawn Ornaments Too many lawn ornaments, such as gnomes, fairies, dolls, or flamingos, read as tacky to Emily Roose, the founder of Emily Roose Interiors.
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And creatures — fairies, a faun, the unforgettable Pale Man, with eyes in the palms of his hands — reveal a world of deeper and darker enchantment.
Noun
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Koval Distillery, Chicago’s first legal post-Prohibition distillery, produces spirits as artful as its bottle designs and Vin312 Winery has grown from its owner’s garage into a full-fledged tasting room.
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The release continues Tamworth’s tradition of creating spirits inspired by the natural world around its rural New Hampshire home.
Noun
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Ferrell starred as Buddy in the 2003 Christmas classic, which focused on a human adopted by elves and raised as an elf in the North Pole until one day, as an adult, discovering his true identity.
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At the end of 2005-2006, a whole host of elves got arrested and were sent to prison.
Noun
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Today, the massive complex attracts paranormal investigators who report apparitions, voices, and other unexplained phenomena.
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Why then, when discussing body image after weight changes, is our culture reaching for the language of vexing apparitions and death?
Noun
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Two years ago, the Man City phenom appeared in a 90-second spot for the game that saw him get recruited to storm a castle teeming with goblins, dragons and impish skeletons.
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Follow the babe with the power into Jim Henson’s gloriously weird fantasy wonderland, where goblins sing, doors argue, and David Bowie’s Goblin King serves enough glam-rock charisma to power an entire kingdom.
Noun
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Typically, ghosts show up in literature when something that has been repressed escapes and becomes everyone’s problem.
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This bed and breakfast is said to be haunted by more than a dozen spirits, including the ghosts of Civil War soldiers and a woman who once owned the early 1800s home.
Noun
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As virality goes, this is not a big number, but the passion that the account has aroused dwarfs its reach.
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Major props to the dwarfs who saw this as a convenient way to score help in the cleaning department.
Noun
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Dark figures were darting through the shadows—Germans were carrying sacks and pillows to their building.
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Reflections, shadows and motion blur can all reduce detection confidence.
Cite this Entry
“Sprites.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/sprites. Accessed 5 Jul. 2026.
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