What does "spread" mean?
Spread: Here the Rhone Hath spread himself a couch. Byron.
Additional senses
- 2.To extend so as to cover something; to extend to a great or grater extent in every direction; to cause to fill or cover a wide or wider space. Rose, as in a dance, the stately trees, and spread Their branches hung with copious fruit. Milton.
- 3.To divulge; to publish, as news or fame; to cause to be more extensively known; to disseminate; to make known fully; as, to spread a report; -- often acompanied by abroad. They, when they were departed, spread abroad his fame in all that country. Matt. ix.
- 4.4. To propagate; to cause to affect great numbers; as, to spread a disease.
- 5.To diffuse, as emanations or effluvia; to emit; as, odoriferous plants spread their fragrance.
- 6.To strew; to scatter over a surface; as, to spread manure; to spread lime on the ground.
- 7.To prepare; to set and furnish with provisions; as, to spread a table. Boiled the flesh, and spread the board. Tennyson. To sprad cloth, to unfurl sail. [Obs.] Evelyn.
- 8.To extend in length and breadth in all directions, or in breadth only; to be extended or stretched; to expand. Plants, if they spread much, are seldom tall. Bacon. Govrnor Winthrop, and his associates at Charlestown, had for a church a large, spreading tree. B. Trumbull.
- 9.To be extended by drawing or beating; as, some metals spread with difficulty.
- 10.To be made known more extensively, as news.
- 11.To be propagated from one to another; as, the disease spread into all parts of the city. Shak.
- 12.Extent; compass. I have got a fine spread of improvable land. Addison.
- 13.Expansion of parts. No flower hath spread like that of the woodbine. Bacon.
- 14.A cloth used as a cover for a table or a bed.
- 15.A table, as spread or furnished with a meal; hence, an entertainment of food; a feast. [Colloq.]
- 16.A privilege which one person buys of another, of demanding certain shares of stock at a certain price, or of delivering the same shares of stock at another price, within a time agreed upon. [Broker's Cant]
- 17.(Geom.) An unlimited expanse of discontinuous points.
- 18.imp. & p. p. of Spread, v. Spread eagle. (a) An eagle with outspread wings, the national emblem of the United States. (b) The figure of an eagle, with its wings elevated and its legs extended; often met as a device upon military ornaments, and the like. (c) (Her.) An eagle displayed; an eagle with the wings and legs extended on each side of the body, as in the double-headed eagle of Austria and Russia. See Displayed, 2.
Sources
- Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).
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- Published: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00 · Modified: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00