sprat n small fatty European fish; usually smoked or canned like sardines n small herring processed like a sardine Usage(s) In London he would have been a sprat in a sea of talent. Congress fretted and fumbled; its appropriations, snapped Quartermaster General Nathanael Greene, were "no more equal to our wants than a sprat in a whale's belly. Synonym(s) brisling Clupea sprattus