the.com/sprinkler
a tiny rain god summoned by Tuesdays and the threat of a dead lawn
means A device that scatters water in droplets over a lawn, garden, or — in ceilings — to douse fires.
from From the verb "sprinkle," which traces back to Middle English "sprenkelen," likely a frequentative form meaning "to scatter in small drops." It's related to Middle Dutch "sprenkelen" and a family of Germanic words for speckling and spattering — the same root cluster that gives us "speckle" and the sense of small scattered spots. The "-er" ending is the plain old agent suffix, turning the act of sprinkling into the thing that does the sprinkling.
- origin trick
- Modern pop-up versions perfected for golf courses first
- fire hero
- Sprinkler heads burst individually, only where heat hits
- glass trigger
- Most fire heads pop from a heat-shattered glass bulb
- kid magnet
- Lawn versions double as free summer water parks
- water waste
- Outdoor systems lose half their water to evaporation
rain bird impact sprinkler — iconic rotating brass sprinkler invented in 1933, still manufactured and used in millions of gardens worldwide
orbit aqua timer sprinkler — battery-powered digital sprinkler timer, one of the best-selling automatic watering systems for residential lawns since the 1990s
toro t-bird sprinkler — commercial-grade impact sprinkler developed in the 1970s, standard equipment on golf courses and sports fields