Asprawl

//əˈspɹɔːl// adj, prep

adj, prep ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Sprawling; covered or filled (with something sprawling). not-comparable

    "1887, Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet, New York and London: Street & Smith, Part 2, Chapter 4, p. 129, […] he saw […] a man lying flat upon his face upon the ground, with his arms and legs all asprawl."

Preposition
  1. 1
    Sprawling over or across.

    "All through the night which followed her panic flight from the huge, heavy-footed figure that had groped out for her, called to her, and dropped asprawl her own small cloak in the doorway, Denny Bolton’s blood-soiled face and drunkenly reckless laugh had been with her,"

Example

More examples

"1887, Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet, New York and London: Street & Smith, Part 2, Chapter 4, p. 129, […] he saw […] a man lying flat upon his face upon the ground, with his arms and legs all asprawl."

Etymology

From a- + sprawl.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.