This week’s theme
Words from animals

This week’s words
dog days
lionize
chicken hawk
blackbird
spread-eagle


This week’s comments
AWADmail 790

Next week’s theme
Miscellaneous words

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(SPRED-ee-guhl)

MEANING:

noun:	An emblematic representation of an eagle with outspread wings.
verb tr.:	To position someone with arms and legs stretched out.
verb intr.:	1. To assume the form of a spread eagle.
	2. To be boastful or bombastic in a display of nationalistic pride.
adjective:	1. Lying with arms and legs stretched out.
	2. Boastful or bombastic in a display of nationalistic pride.

ETYMOLOGY:

The eagle, in various positions, has been a popular bird in heraldry. A spread eagle is on the coats of arms of Germany, Poland, Romania, and the United States. Earliest documented use: 1550. Also see frogmarch.

USAGE:

“‘Residents were regularly harassed, stopped, searched; put up against a wall, the police car, the buildings, and spread-eagled,’ Futterman says.”
Lydialyle Gibson; Policing the Police; ABA Journal (Chicago, Illinois); Sep 2016.

“The Glorious Fourth began with a parade to the bandstand for a spread-eagle speech and ended with a barbecue on the edge of town.”
William Culp Darrah; Powell of the Colorado; Princeton University Press; 1951.

See more usage examples of spread-eagle in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: