SPRAWL • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Sprawl

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/sprɔl/ Listen

noun

sprawl n. The position or state resulting from sprawling; as, he sat on the couch in a sprawl; uncontrolled urban sprawl.

verb

Sprawl v. i. (past & past part. sprawled; pres. part. sprawling)

To spread and stretch the body or limbs carelessly in a horizontal position; to lie with the limbs stretched out ungracefully.

To spread irregularly, as vines, plants, or trees; to spread ungracefully, as chirography.

To move, when lying down, with awkward extension and motions of the limbs; to scramble in creeping. "The birds were not fledged; but upon sprawling and struggling to get clear of the flame, down they tumbled."

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Etymology of 'Sprawl'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Sprawl" Quotes from Famous Books

... that there is a ritual according to which every act and compliment must be performed, or the failing party must be cast out of this presence. Later they learn that good sense and character make their own forms every moment, and speak or abstain, take wine or refuse it, stay or go, sit in a chair or sprawl with children on the floor, or stand on their head, or what else soever, in a new and aboriginal way; and that strong will is always in fashion, let who will be unfashionable. All that fashion demands is composure ...

— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... sprawl, now that the heat of day is best, Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire, With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin. And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush, And feels about his spine small eft-things ...

— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... in the ray of candlelight that was fitfully and feebly capering on the windy blackness outside the open workshop of Crickledon, the carpenter, fronting the sea-beach. Mr. Tinnnan's house was inquired for. Crickledon left off planing; at half-sprawl over the board, he bawled out, "Turn to the right; right ahead; can't mistake it." He nodded to one of the cronies intent on watching his labours: "Not unless they mean to be bait for whiting-pout. Who's that for Tinman, I wonder?" The speculations ...

— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... not a pretty sight. His muscular arms and legs were all a-sprawl and his head hung back at a strange angle to his body, so that his fiery red beard pointed upwards, exposing all the thick sinewy throat beneath it. His eyes were half open and looked bleared and unhealthy, while his thick lips puffed out with a whistling sound at every expiration. His ...

— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Water shortages loom, but have not yet seriously materialized. Floods threaten, but only at certain definable spots. Human beings boom outward from the Washington metropolis and the other centers of population in search of a fuller life, and the consumptive sprawl and sameness of the communities built to receive them often deny it to them. But in modern terms there are not really enormous numbers of them yet, and for their pleasure and fulfillment a great deal of varied and handsome and ...

— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior

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