One picture sits behind every use of this word: water arrives in a single stream, something breaks it into many small drops, and throws those drops out over an area. That is all a sprinkler is. Change where you hang it and what you want the water to reach, and you get the different uses. Put it on the ground facing up, and the drops fall on grass and soil. Fix it to a ceiling facing down, and the drops fall on a fire. The word never stops meaning the same thing; only the direction and the purpose move.
From the word’s history
The word is built from sprinkle plus -er, so its parts already say the whole idea: the thing that sprinkles.
這個字是 sprinkle（把水一點一點灑出去）加上 -er（做這件事的東西）組成的。字的組成本身就已經把核心畫面說完了：負責把水灑開的那個東西。
Wiktionary entry for sprinkler (kaikki extract, supplied in packet): From sprinkle + -er.
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。