sprawl

What it means

1. To sit with the limbs spread out.

   There were pillows on the floor, a few chairs, and four or five students sprawled here and there watching a football game.

   1979, Thomas S. Spradley, James P. Spradley, chapter 6, in Deaf Like Me, Gallaudet University Press, published 1985, →ISBN, page 64

   2 more examples

   There was no special place for him or his little affairs, and he was forbidden to sprawl on sofas and explain his ideas about the manufacture of this world and his hopes for the future. Sprawling was lazy and wore out sofas, and little boys were not expected to talk.

   1888, Rudyard Kipling, “Baa Baa, Black Sheep”, in The Man Who Would Be King, and Other Stories, Wordsworth Editions, published 1994, →ISBN, page 159

   But most of all I like to sit in the dark with all these hearty souls sprawled around me on the floor and hear them talk. I am sorry to say that I can never believe that floor-sprawling is anything but a pose; I have tried it and it is not comfortable but it looks well in the flickering fire-light, and is in good magazine-story tradition.

   1942, Louise Dickinson Rich, “‘Do You Get Out Very Often?’”, in We Took to the Woods, Down East Enterprises, published 2007, →ISBN, page 314

2. To spread out in a disorderly fashion; to straggle.

   A shrewd blow, it caught him off balance, and after one ineffectual stagger he sprawled backward and lay for a moment staring up in blank surprise

   1914, Herman Whitaker, Cross Trails: The Story of One Woman in the North Woods, BiblioBazaar, published 2009, →ISBN, page 116

   3 more examples

   The hatched young ones are ſodl to thoſe who breed them up, and theſe try in the following manner whether they are hatched too ſoon or not: they take hold the little ducks by the bill, and their bodies hang down ; if they ſprawl and extend their feet and wings, they are hatched in due time ; but if they have had too much heat, they hang without any ſtruggling.

   1771, Johann Reinhold Foster, “Birds and Beasts”, in A Voyage to China and the East Indies, volume 2, A Short Account of the Chinese Husbandry, B. White, translation of original by Carl Gustav Ekeberg, page 321

   German trucks stood along the road, the drivers dead in the seats or sprawled on the ground nearby. […] The woods were dotted with the corpses of German machine gunners still sprawled grotesquely over their weapons, having given their lives to buy time for Group Mihiel’s escape.

   1995, James H. Hallas, “Eyes on Metz”, in Squandered Victory: the American First Army at St. Mihiel, Greenwood Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 187

   Bell sprawled full length to turn a Sandaza drive wide of the far post, but Saints had done enough to inflict Killie's first home defeat of the season.

   2011 October 1, Clive Lindsay, “Kilmarnock 1 – 2 St Johnstone”, in BBC Sport

   Synonyms: splay

3. governmentTo scoot the legs backwards, so as to land on the upper back of an opponent attempting a takedown.

In a sentence

There was no special place for him or his little affairs, and he was forbidden to sprawl on sofas and explain his ideas about the manufacture of this world and his hopes for the future. Sprawling was lazy and wore out sofas, and little boys were not expected to talk.

1888, Rudyard Kipling, “Baa Baa, Black Sheep”, in The Man Who Would Be King, and Other Stories, Wordsworth Editions, published 1994, →ISBN, page 159

Where it comes from

1. Proto-Indo-European*sper-“to strew”
2. Old Englishspreawlian“move convulsively”
3. Middle Englishspraulen
4. Englishsprawl

From Middle English spraulen, from Old English spreawlian (“move convulsively”), ultimately through a Proto-Germanic form cognate with *spreutaną (“to sprout”) from Proto-Indo-European *sper- (“to strew”). Compare North Frisian spraweli, Norwegian sprala, Swedish sprala.