Sprawl

Quick meaning: Sprawl is a verb meaning To sit with the limbs spread out.

Meaning

To sit with the limbs spread out.

More Meanings

1. To spread out in a disorderly fashion; to straggle.
2. (wrestling, martial arts) To scoot the legs backwards, so as to land on the upper back of an opponent attempting a takedown.
3. An ungainly sprawling posture.
4. A straggling, haphazard growth, especially of housing on the edge of a city.
5. (wrestling, martial arts) 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.

Example Sentences

There were pillows on the floor, a few chairs, and four or five students sprawled here and there watching a football game.

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

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.

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.

Word Forms

• sprawls
• sprawling
• sprawled

Synonyms for sprawl

Depending on context, synonyms include splay, sprawling, straggle.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include straggle, scatter, dispersion, dispersal, disruption, spread.

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