SPRAWLING • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Sprawling

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/sprˈɔlɪŋ/ Listen

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 'Sprawling'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Sprawling" Quotes from Famous Books

... were little attended to, and when foreshortening was not at all understood: this added to the horrible effect, for the executioner's arm and scourge were of tremendous size; Sir Josseline stood miraculously tall, and the Jew, crouching, supplicating, sprawling, was the most distorted squalid figure, eyes ever beheld, or imagination ...

— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... into a laugh,—the first that had been heard,—and when two or three heads popped out from behind their printed screens to inquire into the cause of his mirth, that light-hearted gentleman was seen sprawling his long legs apart and gazing out of the window after the groups ...

— The Deserter • Charles King

... into five as homely little objects as ever broke their way out of good-looking eggshells. There was not down on their bodies to make them fluffy and pretty, like Peter Piper's children. They were just sprawling little bits of crow-life, so helpless that it would have been quite pitiful if they had not had a good patient mother and a father who seemed never to get tired of ...

— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch

... at the thing on the ground at his feet. There was a movement in the scrub and Alice Marcum stood beside him. He glanced into her face. And as her eyes strayed from the sprawling figure to meet his, Endicott read in their depths that which caused his heart to race madly. She stepped toward him and suddenly both paused to listen. The girl's face turned chalk-white in the moonlight. From the direction of the ...

— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx

... found a drama, though of a more grotesque sort. It showed nothing less than his big friend Flambeau in an attitude to which he had long been unaccustomed, while upon the pathway at the bottom of the steps was sprawling with his boots in the air the amiable Atkinson, his billycock hat and walking cane sent flying in opposite directions along the path. Atkinson had at length wearied of Flambeau's almost paternal custody, and had endeavoured to knock him down, which was by no means a ...

— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

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