bestride
Americanverb (used with object)
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bestrides,
present (3rd person singular)
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bestrode,
past participle, past
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bestrid,
past participle, past
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bestridden,
past participle
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bestriding
present participle
-
to get or be astride of; have or place the legs on both sides of.
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to step over or across with long strides.
-
to stand or tower over; dominate.
verb
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to have or put a leg on either side of
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to extend across; span
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to stride over or across
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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bestridesimple
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bestridessimple
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have bestridperfect
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have bestriddenperfect
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have bestrodeperfect
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has bestridperfect
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has bestriddenperfect
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has bestrodeperfect
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am bestridingprogressive
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are bestridingprogressive
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is bestridingprogressive
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have been bestridingperfect progressive
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has been bestridingperfect progressive
Past
-
bestridsimple
-
bestrodesimple
-
had bestridperfect
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had bestriddenperfect
-
had bestrodeperfect
-
was bestridingprogressive
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were bestridingprogressive
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had been bestridingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of bestride
before 1000; Middle English bestriden, Old English bestrīdan. See be-, stride
Vocabulary lists containing bestride
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
For much of his second term, Trump has seemed to bestride the globe, lavishing his attention on a wide range of international issues.
From Slate ● Mar. 10, 2026
No Jim Brown, the scourge of defensive backs and Black Power avatar bestride a motorcycle.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 29, 2022
It is a rare feat for a civil-rights luminary, even on the local level, to bestride generations, as the dearly missed U.S.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 27, 2020
Solar panels are being nailed to rooftops, colossal wind turbines bestride the plains and oceans, and a million electric vehicles are on U.S. roads — and it isn’t enough.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 3, 2018
"I care not where they carry me, so I take Silver Heels from yon brute that is bestride her!"
From The Minute Boys of York Town by James Otis
Immaculately groomed and entirely self-possessed, Siobhan bestrides the world of public relations like an expertly contoured colossus.
From New York Times ● Sep. 21, 2023
New Zealand, noted for its gorgeous geography and modest population of 5 million, bestrides an important geostrategic location between the South Pacific and Antarctica.
From Washington Times ● Jan. 19, 2023
Amazon is a behemoth that bestrides several economic sectors.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 24, 2021
The U.S. remains immensely powerful, but it no longer bestrides the world like a colossus.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 15, 2015
Wearing embroidered palikari vest, puffy-sleeved poukamiso, and pleated foustanella skirt, my grandfather bestrides the gangway- He pauses a moment to look out at the audience, but the bright lights blind him.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
His legs bestrid the ocean; his rear'd arm crested the world; his voice was propertied ... as all the tuned spheres.
From Time Magazine Archive
That horse, that thou so often hast bestrid; That horse, that I so carefully have dress'd!
From Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Neuer bestrid a Horse saue one, that had A Rider like my selfe, who ne're wore Rowell, Nor Iron on his heele?
From Cymbeline by William Shakespeare
And I bestrid A Porcupine that never prickt.
From Discovery of Witches The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster by Thomas Potts
These Warriours on a sort of Coursers rid, Ne’r log’d in Stables, or by Man bestrid.
From Anti-Achitophel (1682) Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden by Harold Whitmore Jones
He bestrode both the old California and the new.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 4, 2026
The U.S. bestrode the world like a colossus, and manufacturing was central to our dominance.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 10, 2026
Casemiro, a sad and fading shadow of the great player who bestrode Real Madrid's midfield through their Champions League glories, simply strolled out.
From BBC ● May 12, 2024
He bestrode the tabloid newspapers and craved headlines and front pages.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 18, 2024
Napoleon, however, got hoisted on to a gun, and bestrode it: the marshals and generals did the same, and in this grotesque order they reached, after four hours' toil, the convent at the summit.
From Napoleon's Letters to Josephine by Henry Foljambe Hall
James Ramsay MacDonald, onetime British Prime Minister, said last week: "I have never bestridden a bicycle because I have no balance of that sort."
From Time Magazine Archive
But the spirit of Romance and Christendom, the spirit which is in every lover, the spirit which has bestridden the earth with European adventure, is quite opposite.
From Heretics by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
It does not become disconcerted, but adjusts to its divine work the man who has bestridden the Alps, and the good old tottering invalid of Father Elysee.
From Les Misérables by Isabel Florence Hapgood
Josephine had bestridden the sash of her window.
From The Exploits of Juve Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantômas" Detective Tales by Émile Souvestre
In front marched the five hundred elephants, each bestridden by an officer of rank, and led by Hemu, on his own favourite animal, in person.
From Rulers of India: Akbar by George Bruce Malleson
Indeed, many historians and political experts say that as the 106th mayor of New York, from 1990-93, Dinkins suffered by comparison with the Gullivers bestriding him.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 24, 2020
“We have a royal family that befits the idea of an empire bestriding half the globe,” said Alan Rusbridger, a former editor of The Guardian.
From New York Times ● Jan. 15, 2020
When he was bestriding the nation, Gershwin was the most modern guy around; 82 years later — guess what? — he still is.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 6, 2019
THE only media mogul still bestriding his industry in old-fashioned style is used to being a predator rather than prey, a builder of empires, not a dismantler of them.
From Economist ● Nov. 23, 2017
Unlike the suffering, earthbound Christs depicted at eye level on the church walls, our Christ Pantocrator was clearly transcendent, all-powerful, heaven- bestriding.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
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