dispread

present singular third person dispreads · participle present dispreading · participle past dispreaded · past dispreaded

1. archaicrareTo spread out, to extend.

   The lamp which ultimately was sure to be lifted up to illumine the acts of this secretive race began slowly to dispread its rays …

   1859, George Meredith, chapter 13, in The Ordeal of Richard Feverel. A History of Father and Son. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC

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   In widest Ocean she her throne does reare, / That ouer all the earth it may be seene; / As morning Sunne her beames dispredden cleare [...].

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

   her dark hair was dispread, Like the pine’s locks upon the lingering blast; Over mine eyes its shadowy strings it spread Fitfully, and the hills and streams fled fast, As o’er their glimmering forms the steed’s broad shadow past; […]

   1817 December, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “The Revolt of Islam. […]”, in [Mary] Shelley, editor, The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. […], volume I, London: Edward Moxon […], published 1839, →OCLC, page 269