Manspreading

//ˈmænˌspɹɛdɪŋ// noun, verb, slang

noun, verb, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The practice of men splaying their legs open wide when sitting on public transport, thus occupying more than one seat. derogatory, informal, uncountable

    "The new ads — aimed at curbing rude behavior like manspreading and wearing large backpacks on crowded trains — are set to go up in the subways next month."

Verb
  1. 1
    present participle and gerund of manspread form-of, gerund, participle, present

Synonyms

All synonyms
man sittingman-sitting

Example

More examples

"The new ads — aimed at curbing rude behavior like manspreading and wearing large backpacks on crowded trains — are set to go up in the subways next month."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From man + spreading. Popularized in 2014, perhaps patterned after mansplaining. Equal to manspread + -ing.

Etymology 2

From manspread + -ing.

Related phrases

public transport

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