Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com
Synonyms

outspread

American  
[out-spred, out-spred, out-spred] / ˌaʊtˈsprɛd, ˈaʊtˈsprɛd, ˈaʊtˌsprɛd /

verb (used with or without object)

outspread, outspreading
  1. to spread out; extend.

    an eagle outspreading its wings.


adjective

  1. spread out; stretched out.

    outspread arms.

  2. diffused abroad; widely disseminated.

    The outspread news had traveled quickly.

noun

  1. the act of spreading out; expansion.

    the rapid outspread of the early American colonists.

  2. something that is spread out; an expanse.

    a vast outspread of rich farmland.

outspread British  

verb

  1. to spread out or cause to spread out

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

adjective

  1. spread or stretched out

  2. scattered or diffused widely

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

noun

  1. a spreading out

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of outspread

1300–50; Middle English outspredden (v.). See out-, spread

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:

Occasionally, a couple will even have a Jack and Rose moment, one person with arms outspread, the other clutching them around the waist.

From Seattle Times Feb. 12, 2024

At the top is an enamelled dove with outspread wings, which represents the Holy Ghost.

From Reuters May 5, 2023

We all wish we could still run into the outspread arms of the father we lost.

From Salon Nov. 23, 2022

Thus a skydiver falls more slowly with outspread limbs than when they are in a pike position—head first with hands at their side and legs together.

From Textbooks Aug. 12, 2015

She lands on her feet, arms outspread, and reports, “The Marshes have the holo up too loud. It sounds like I have cops in my head.”

From "Landscape with Invisible Hand" by M.T. Anderson

In four years he has made Brooklyn's farm system baseball's biggest, outspreading the famed St. Louis Cardinals' system, which he built.

From Time Magazine Archive

I dreamed a world where all seemed first-created outspreading bird cherries in the dewfall with blackbirds and nightingales crowded.

From Time Magazine Archive

God Christ—along the weary lands, What lone invisible Calvaries are set, What drooping brows with dews of anguish wet, What faint outspreading of unwilling hands, Bound to a viewless cross with viewless bands.

From Playing With Fire by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

On one side rugged, sternly rising, crenelated, grey, snow-strewn; on the other, dreamy, far outspreading, gently vanishing, southward luring, softly glowing, wrapt in tints of loveliest azure, gradually blending with the silver-fretted sky.

From The Life, Letters and Work of Frederic Leighton Volume I by Mrs. Russell Barrington

Coltonobory began to mass his army in the form of an immense outspreading hemisphere of the form of an open umbrella.

From The Goddess of Atvatabar Being the history of the discovery of the interior world and conquest of Atvatabar by William Richard Bradshaw

Vocabulary.com logo
by dictionary.com

Join 14,000,000 vocabulary learners

Start learning new words today on VocabTrainer.
You'll remember them forever.

Start training