bestride
/bɪˈstɹaɪd/
bestride verb: to be astride something, to stand over or sit on with legs on either side, especially to sit on a horse.
Verb
bestride (third-person singular simple present bestrides, present participle bestriding, simple past bestrode, past participle bestrode or bestridden or bestrid)
- To be astride something, to stand over or sit on with legs on either side, especially to sit on a horse.
- & thou were the truest frende to thy louar that euer bestrade hors
"And thou were the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrad horse"1485, Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur Book XXI, Chapter xiii, leaf 430v - But fleeter far the pinions of the Wind, / Which from Siberian caves the monarch freed, / And sent him forth, with squadrons of his kind, / And bade the Snow their ample backs bestride, / And to the battle ride.1816, William Wordsworth, Composed in Recollection of the Expedition of the French into Russia, February 1816, lines 27–31
- Synonyms:
- straddle
- & thou were the truest frende to thy louar that euer bestrade hors
- To stride over, or across.
- To dominate.
- Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world / Like a Colossus[…].c. 1599, William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Act I Scene II
- He looked up again at the portrait of Big Brother. The colossus that bestrode the world!1949 June 8, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter 6, in Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC; republished [Australia]: Project Gutenberg of Australia...
bestride meaning in Tamil, Urdu and Malayalam
bestride in Tamil
- குதிரைமீது கால்விரித்து ஏறு, கால்விரித்தேறி அமர், நாற்காலிமீது கால் பரப்பி உட்கார், தாவிநில்
bestride in Urdu
- سوار ہونا, حاوی ہونا
bestride in Malayalam
- കാലുകൾ അകത്തിനില്ക്കുക
Examples of bestride in a sentence
- The knightly Crusader bestrides a war-horse of heavy proportions , which he has suddenly reined in , as he waves on high a flag as a rallying sign for his followers.1852, The Crystal Palace and Its Contents, page 139:
- He threw in my way a piece of timber which I bestrided, and the waves tossed me to and fro till they cast me upon an island coast […]1885, Richard Burton, transl., The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, published by private subscription, Vol. I edition, page 172:
- […] she would take the betrothal document from her father's chest of drawers and pore over the signature: Ezriel Babad. […] His signature seemed to bestride her own.1967, Joseph Singer, Elaine Gottlieb, “Chapter 2”, in Farrar, Straus and Giroux, editor, The Manor, New York, translation of original by...
- Again I bestride the mitred, leather-winged steed.1981, Gene Wolfe, chapter VIII, in The Claw of the Conciliator (The Book of the New Sun; 2), New York: Timescape, →ISBN, page 71:
Synonyms of bestride
Forms of bestride
| third-person singular present | bestrides |
|---|---|
| present participle | bestriding |
| past | bestrode |
| past participle | bestrode |
| past participle | bestridden |
| past participle | bestrid |
Origin of bestride
From Middle English bestriden, from Old English bestrīdan, from Proto-West Germanic *bistrīdan; equivalent to be- + stride. Compare Dutch bestrijden, German bestreiten.
Words that rhyme with bestride
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- provide
- tied
- fried
- glide
- hide
- inside
- bide
- decide
- offside
- -side
- collide
- confide
- flipside
- set aside
- stride
- subside
- aside
- beride
- beside
- chide
- coincide
- cyanide
- dried
- elide
- eyed
- gride
- preside
- reside
- Ryde
- allied
- applied
- astride
- betide
- bride
- deride
- dyed
- guyed
- I'd
- imide
- incide
- pied
- right side
- said
- snide
- statewide
- tried
- vide
- allide
Questions about bestride
- What does bestride mean?
- Bestride means to be astride something, to stand over or sit on with legs on either side, especially to sit on a horse.
- What is bestride in Tamil?
- Bestride in Tamil is குதிரைமீது கால்விரித்து ஏறு, கால்விரித்தேறி அமர், நாற்காலிமீது கால் பரப்பி உட்கார். See Bestride meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use bestride in a sentence?
- The knightly Crusader bestrides a war-horse of heavy proportions , which he has suddenly reined in , as he waves on high a flag as a rallying sign for his followers.
- What part of speech is bestride?
- Bestride is a verb.
- How do you pronounce bestride?
- Bestride is pronounced /bɪˈstɹaɪd/ (US).
- What is the past tense of bestride?
- The past tense of bestride is bestrode.
Words near bestride in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: bestride (page history and authors); bestride (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); bestride (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); bestride (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-bestride.ogg.
Cite this entry: “bestride.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bestride. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.