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
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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.
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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
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bestridsimple
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bestrodesimple
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had bestridperfect
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had bestriddenperfect
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had bestrodeperfect
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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
Here was one about to offer himself ready saddled, and as if saying, “Come and bestride me!”
From The Guerilla Chief And other Tales by Reid, Mayne
He bestrides a real estate empire worth $25 billion, according to Forbes, a portfolio that includes 56 cottages, 12 homes and seven palaces.
From New York Times ● May 1, 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
Today he bestrides the town like a colossus.
From Salon ● Jul. 5, 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
He knows the pedigree of every horse on the place, and has bestrid the great-great-grandsires of most of them.
From Bracebridge Hall by Irving, Washington
And I bestrid A Porcupine that never prickt.
From Discovery of Witches The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster by Potts, Thomas, fl. 1612-1618
To stand or sit with anything between the legs, or with the legs astride; to stand over That horse that thou so often hast bestrid.
From Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (2nd 100 Pages) by Webster, Noah
That horse that thou so often hast bestrid; That horse that I so carefully have dressed!
From Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 by Brewer, Ebenezer Cobham
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
He was sentenced to three years in prison, two of them suspended, in what was a stunning fall from grace for a former president who once bestrode the world.
From Reuters ● May 17, 2023
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 Hall, Henry Foljambe
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
The animal bestridden by the young engineer began to snort and plunge excitedly, but Ronie was soon at its bit.
From Where Duty Called or, In Honor Bound by Clair, Victor St.
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 Malleson, George Bruce
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 Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
Sure, such a horse for slipping from under one was never bestridden by man.'
From Micah Clarke His Statement as made to his three grandchildren Joseph, Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 by Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir
If things were as United believes they should be, and England’s biggest club was bestriding the Premier League like a colossus, then the hiring of an executive would be little more than a footnote.
From New York Times ● Jan. 27, 2024
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
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
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
