Library / English Dictionary

SPRAWL

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

An ungainly posture with arms and legs spread about

Synonyms:

sprawl; sprawling

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("sprawl" is a kind of...):

attitude; position; posture (the arrangement of the body and its limbs)

Derivation:

sprawl (sit or lie with one's limbs spread out)

sprawly (extended out irregularly)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An aggregation or continuous network of urban communities

Synonyms:

conurbation; sprawl; urban sprawl

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Hypernyms ("sprawl" is a kind of...):

populated area; urban area (a geographical area constituting a city or town)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "sprawl"):

subtopia (monotonous urban sprawl of standardized buildings)

Instance hyponyms:

Luda; Luta (an industrial conurbation in northeastern China on the southern end of the Liaodong Peninsula; it now includes the cities of Dalian and Lushun)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Sit or lie with one's limbs spread out

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "sprawl" is one way to...):

sit; sit down (be seated)

lie (be lying, be prostrate; be in a horizontal position)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "sprawl"):

spread-eagle (stand with arms and legs spread out)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP

Sentence examples:

The children sprawl in the rocking chair

There sprawl some children in the rocking chair

Derivation:

sprawl (an ungainly posture with arms and legs spread about)

sprawler (a person who sprawls)

sprawling (an ungainly posture with arms and legs spread about)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Go, come, or spread in a rambling or irregular way

Example:

Branches straggling out quite far

Synonyms:

sprawl; straggle

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Hypernyms (to "sprawl" is one way to...):

distribute; spread (distribute or disperse widely)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Something is ----ing PP

Credits

 Context examples: 

At night when the young king was sleeping, his wife was to draw the clothes off him and empty the bucket full of cold water with the gudgeons in it over him, so that the little fishes would sprawl about him.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Right in front, the doctor was pursuing his assailant down the hill, and just as my eyes fell upon him, beat down his guard and sent him sprawling on his back with a great slash across the face.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

This person (who had thus, from the first moment of his entrance, struck in me what I can only describe as a disgustful curiosity) was dressed in a fashion that would have made an ordinary person laughable; his clothes, that is to say, although they were of rich and sober fabric, were enormously too large for him in every measurement—the trousers hanging on his legs and rolled up to keep them from the ground, the waist of the coat below his haunches, and the collar sprawling wide upon his shoulders.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Now, the old sofa was a regular patriarch of a sofa—long, broad, well-cushioned, and low, a trifle shabby, as well it might be, for the girls had slept and sprawled on it as babies, fished over the back, rode on the arms, and had menageries under it as children, and rested tired heads, dreamed dreams, and listened to tender talk on it as young women.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

They were always crawling and sprawling toward it, and being driven back from it by their mother.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

He sprawled silently on the ground, watching the grisly form of a great doubt rising before him.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Here and there by the wayside stood little knots of wattle-and-daub huts with shock-haired laborers lounging by the doors and red-cheeked children sprawling in the roadway.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In mercy I put a bullet through his skull, and he fell sprawling among the aloes.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

By the first post I got my directed envelope with a dirty scrap of paper enclosed, on which was written with a carpenter's pencil in a sprawling hand:— Sam Bloxam, Korkrans, 4, Poters Cort, Bartel Street, Walworth. Arsk for the depite.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The puppy sprawled in front of him.

(White Fang, by Jack London)