Word.ws English Dictionary

spread-eagle

spread-eagle adjective: lying with arms and legs outstretched and separated.

Adjective

spread-eagle (comparative more spread-eagle, superlative most spread-eagle)

  1. Lying with arms and legs outstretched and separated.
  2. (US, dated) Characterized by a pretentious, boastful, exaggerated style; bombastic.
    • Our former townsman, Mr. G. F. Train, has recently made a tremendous spread-eagle speech in England, upon the occasion of the reopening of trade between Liverpool and New Zealand […]c. 1857, unknown author, from Boston Gazette, quoted in George Francis Train, Spread-eagleism, page 88 (1859)
    • But Mr. Lloyd is not a spread-eagle patriot, or much given to political partisanship.1894, The Arena, volume 10, page 581

Verb

spread-eagle (third-person singular simple present spread-eagles, present participle spread-eagling, simple past and past participle spread-eagled)

  1. (transitive) To put into a spread-eagle position, with arms and legs extended and spread.
  2. (intransitive) To put one's body in a spread eagle.

spread-eagle meaning in Tamil, Bengali and Kannada

spread-eagle in Tamil

விரிசிறைக் கழுகுருவம், சிறைவிரிகழுகாட்டம், பகட்டாரவார முழக்க மிக்க, ஆரவாரத் தேசீயப்பற்றார்வங்கொண்ட, ஆரவார நாட்டுப்பற்றார்வ முழக்கங்கொண்ட, தற்பொருமையுடைய

spread-eagle in Bengali

আড়ম্বরপূর্ণ, অহঙ্কারী, অতিরঞ্জিত শৈলী যুক্ত

spread-eagle in Kannada

ಕಿಸಿಗಾಲ ವರಿಸೆಯಲ್ಲಿರು, ಕೈಕಾಲುಗಳನ್ನು ಅಗಲಿಸಿಕೊಂಡಿರು, ಸಂಪೂರ್ಣವಾಗಿ ಸೋಲಿಸು

Forms of spread-eagle

Adjective
comparativemore spread-eagle
superlativemost spread-eagle
Verb
third-person singular presentspread-eagles
present participlespread-eagling
past participlespread-eagled
pastspread-eagled

Origin of spread-eagle

From spread eagle (noun).

Words formed from spread-eagle

Questions about spread-eagle

What does spread-eagle mean?
Spread-eagle means lying with arms and legs outstretched and separated.
What is spread-eagle in Tamil?
Spread-eagle in Tamil is விரிசிறைக் கழுகுருவம், சிறைவிரிகழுகாட்டம், பகட்டாரவார முழக்க மிக்க. See Spread-eagle meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is spread-eagle?
Spread-eagle can be an adjective or a verb.

Words near spread-eagle in the dictionary

  1. spread syntax
  2. spread tail
  3. spread tails
  4. spread the bed
  5. spread the word
  6. spread-eagle
  7. spread-eagled
  8. spread-eagleism
  9. spread-eagles
  10. spread-eagling
  11. spreadabilities

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: spread-eagle (page history and authors); spread-eagle (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); spread-eagle (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); spread-eagle (Kannada 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-spread-eagle.wav.

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