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Definition of sprawl
intransitive verb
1a archaic : to lie thrashing or tossing aboutb : to creep or clamber awkwardly
2 : to lie or sit with arms and legs spread out
3 : to spread or develop irregularly or without restraint bushes sprawling along the road sprawling suburbs a sprawling narrative
transitive verb
: to cause to spread out carelessly or awkwardly sprawled out her books on the table
From the M-W Editors
Examples of sprawl in a Sentence
The kids sprawled on the floor to watch TV.
She tripped and went sprawling into the table.
The city sprawls along the coastline.
The bushes were sprawling along the road.
Recent Examples of sprawl from the Web
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In a sprawling essay at Guernica, writer and journalist Katherina Grace Thomas turns a lens on the three years Nina Simone spent in Liberia in the mid-1970s.
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Gupta embeds those monotonic relationships in sprawling databases called interpolated lookup tables.
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One way the Israeli government did just that was by erecting a sprawling detention center for asylum-seekers in the middle of the Negev Desert.
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There are palatial, sprawling estates costing tens of millions of euros.
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Its words were taken to heart: Companies like sprawling conglomerate HNA Group and insurer Anbang pushed the country’s outbound acquisitions to more than $200 billion last year, according to Dealogic.
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The sprawling 5,805-square-foot stunner also appeared in the 1994 film Color of Night.
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At the lushly landscaped, sprawling property just south of the Tecate border crossing, there is an abundance — thousands of acres — of open space.
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Occurring sooner will be a new shuttle service through Warner Center, making the sprawling neighborhood more accessible to Orange Line riders.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'sprawl'. Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Origin and Etymology of sprawl
Middle English, from Old English sprēawlian
sprawl
Definition of sprawl
1 : the act, posture, or condition of sprawling
2 : an irregularly spread or scattered group or mass
3 : urban sprawl
Recent Examples of sprawl from the Web
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In the late 1980s, the city suffered high unemployment, post-industrial vacancy in its port district, and American-style deindustrialization and sprawl.
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Hundreds of sober homes — some reputable, many of them fraud mills and flop houses for drug users — sprawl across Delray Beach and several surrounding cities.
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There have since been dozens of additional proposals to sprawl in Coyote Valley, most successfully defeated.
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Safari Highlands is opposed by a host of environmental groups that decry the development as urban sprawl and by residents of two nearby communities worried about traffic, fire safety, and other impacts to the neighborhood.
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Habitat loss due to urban and suburban sprawl is one of the main reasons.
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The city is 'hiding in all that sprawl' Phoenix falls short in some of the basic measures that give people the sense of a big city.
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Christine, a musician, has set stones etched with song lyrics among soon-to-sprawl ice plants.
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The attack sketched out in the NSA document appears designed specifically to cope with that sprawl.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'sprawl'. Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
First Known Use of sprawl
1598
SPRAWL Defined for English Language Learners
sprawl
playDefinition of sprawl for English Language Learners
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: to lie or sit with your arms and legs spread wide apart
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: to spread or develop in an uneven or uncontrolled way
sprawl
Definition of sprawl for English Language Learners
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: a group of things (such as buildings) that cover an area in an uneven and ugly way
SPRAWL Defined for Kids
Definition of sprawl for Students
sprawled
;sprawling
1 : to lie or sit with arms and legs spread out
2 : to spread out unevenly The city of Madison sprawls between two lakes … — Sharon Creech, Walk Two Moons
Learn More about sprawl
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See words that rhyme with sprawl Spanish Central: Translation of sprawl Nglish: Translation of sprawl for Spanish speakers Britannica English: Translation of sprawl for Arabic speakers
Seen and Heard
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