sprawl

/spɹɔːl/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Australia/spɹoːl/

sprawl verb: to sit with the limbs spread out.

Verb

sprawl (third-person singular simple present sprawls, present participle sprawling, simple past and past participle sprawled)

To sit with the limbs spread out.
- 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.1888, Rudyard Kipling, “Baa Baa, Black Sheep”, in The Man Who Would Be King, and Other Stories, Wordsworth Editions, published 1994, →ISBN, page 159
- 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...1942, Louise Dickinson Rich, “‘Do You Get Out Very Often?’”, in We Took to the Woods, Down East Enterprises, published 2007, →ISBN, page 314
To spread out in a disorderly fashion; to straggle.
- 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...1771, Johann Reinhold Foster, “Birds and Beasts”, in A Voyage to China and the East Indies, volume 2, A Short Account of the Chinese Husbandry, B. White, translation of original by Carl Gustav...
- 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 surprise1914, Herman Whitaker, Cross Trails: The Story of One Woman in the North Woods, BiblioBazaar, published 2009, →ISBN, page 116
Synonyms:

splay
To scoot the legs backwards, so as to land on the upper back of an opponent attempting a takedown.

Noun

sprawl (countable and uncountable, plural sprawls)

An ungainly sprawling posture.
A straggling, haphazard growth, especially of housing on the edge of a city.
- He briefly compares the relative merits of providing for that growth by the usual method of urban sprawl and by directing it into suburban satellite communities with the integrity preserved and comes out strongly for the latter method.1948 October, Terry B. Augur, “The Dispersal of Cities—A Feasible Program”, in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, volume 4, number 10, Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science, →ISSN, page 314
- Many of our past difficulties in dealing with sprawl come from some very mistaken if widely held assumptions. One is that sprawl is due to too many people and not enough land.1959 August 17, William H. Whye Jr., “A Plan to Save Vanishing U.S. Countryside”, in Life, volume 47, number 7, Time, Inc, →ISSN, page 92
A defensive technique that is done in response to certain takedown attempts, where one scoots the legs backwards so as to land on the upper back of the opponent.

sprawl meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada

sprawl in Malayalam

കാല് അകത്തി കിടക്കുക, വളഞ്ഞുപുളഞ്ഞു പടരുക, ഇഴയുക

sprawl in Kannada

ಕಯ್ಕಾಲು ಚಾಚು, ಓರೆಕೋರೆಯಾಗಿ ಬರೆ

More languagesFewer languages

sprawl in Sanskrit: जंह् jaṃh, जंहति jáṃhati

Examples of sprawl in a sentence

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.1942, Louise Dickinson Rich, “‘Do You Get Out Very Often?’”, in We Took to the Woods, Down East Enterprises, published 2007, →ISBN, page...
There were pillows on the floor, a few chairs, and four or five students sprawled here and there watching a football game.1979, Thomas S. Spradley, James P. Spradley, chapter 6, in Deaf Like Me, Gallaudet University Press, published 1985, →ISBN, page 64:
Bell sprawled full length to turn a Sandaza drive wide of the far post, but Saints had done enough to inflict Killie's first home defeat of the season.2011 October 1, Clive Lindsay, “Kilmarnock 1 – 2 St Johnstone”, in BBC Sport:

All 40 example sentences with sprawl

Synonyms of sprawl

splay

Forms of sprawl

Verb
third-person singular present	sprawls
present participle	sprawling
past participle	sprawled
past	sprawled
Noun
plural	sprawls

Past tense of sprawl: sprawled

Origin of sprawl

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.

Words formed from sprawl

Words that rhyme with sprawl

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about sprawl

What does sprawl mean?: Sprawl means to sit with the limbs spread out.
What is sprawl in Tamil?: Sprawl in Tamil is சப்பாணி நடை. See Sprawl meaning in Tamil.
How do you use sprawl in a sentence?: 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.
What part of speech is sprawl?: Sprawl can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce sprawl?: Sprawl is pronounced /spɹɔːl/ (UK).
What is the past tense of sprawl?: The past tense of sprawl is sprawled.

Words near sprawl in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: sprawl (page history and authors); sprawl (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); sprawl (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); sprawl (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); sprawl (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); जंहति (Sanskrit) (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-sprawl.wav.

Cite this entry: “sprawl.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sprawl. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.