spread-eagle

1. 1.

   with arms and legs stretched out and apart

   “lay spread-eagle on the floor”

   Similarextended

Questions about spread-eagle

What does spread-eagle mean?

spread-eagle means "stretch out completely". That is the primary sense; the word has 6 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in spread-eagle?

spread-eagle has 5 syllables and divides as spre-a-d-e-a-gle under the regular spelling rules. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

What is another word for spread-eagle?

Close synonyms include spreadeagle, rout. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is spread-eagle a common word?

spread-eagle is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.