sprawl
/spɹoːl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.99 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
1
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To sit with the limbs spread out.
verb
To spread out in a disorderly fashion; to straggle.
verb
To scoot the legs backwards, so as to land on the upper back of an opponent attempting a takedown.
noun
A straggling, haphazard growth, especially of housing on the edge of a city.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "There was no special place for him or his little affairs, and he was forbidden to sprawl on sofas and explain his ideas about the manufacture of this world and his hopes for the future. Sprawling was lazy and wore out sofas, and little boys were not expected to talk."
- "But most of all I like to sit in the dark with all these hearty souls sprawled around me on the floor and hear them talk. I am sorry to say that I can never believe that floor-sprawling is anything but a pose; I have tried it and it is not comfortable but it looks well in the flickering fire-light, and is in good magazine-story tradition."
- "There were pillows on the floor, a few chairs, and four or five students sprawled here and there watching a football game."
- "The hatched young ones are ſodl to thoſe who breed them up, and theſe try in the following manner whether they are hatched too ſoon or not: they take hold the little ducks by the bill, and their bodies hang down ; if they ſprawl and extend their feet and wings, they are hatched in due time ; but if they have had too much heat, they hang without any ſtruggling."
- "A shrewd blow, it caught him off balance, and after one ineffectual stagger he sprawled backward and lay for a moment staring up in blank surprise"
- "German trucks stood along the road, the drivers dead in the seats or sprawled on the ground nearby. […] The woods were dotted with the corpses of German machine gunners still sprawled grotesquely over their weapons, having given their lives to buy time for Group Mihiel’s escape."
Etymology
From Middle English spraulen, from Old English spreawlian (“move convulsively”), ultimately through a Proto-Germanic form cognate with *spreutaną (“to sprout”) from Proto-Indo-European *sper- (“to strew”). Compare North Frisian spraweli, Norwegian sprala, Swedish sprala.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /spɹoːl/
- British English: /spɹɔːl/