sprawl

Meanings

Verb

• To sit with the limbs spread out.
• To spread out in a disorderly fashion; to straggle.

Noun

• An ungainly sprawling posture.
• A straggling, haphazard growth, especially of housing on the edge of a city.

Origin

• From Middle English spraulen, from Old English spreawlian, ultimately through a Proto-Germanic form cognate with *spreutaną from Proto-Indo-European *sper- ("to strew"). Compare North Frisian spraweli.