astraddle

English

Etymology

a- + straddle

Pronunciation

  • Rhymes: -ædəl

Adverb

astraddle (not comparable)

  1. In a straddling position; astride.
    • 1698, John Fryer, A New Account of East-India and Persia, London: Richard Chiswell, “A Farther Discovery of India,” Chapter 1, p. 410,
      The Charioteer rides afore, a-straddle on the Beam that makes the Yoke for the Oxen, which is covered with Scarlet, and finely carved underneath []
    • 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned, New York: Scribner, Book 3, Chapter 1, p. 356,
      A faint string of smoke was rising from a cigarette-tray—a number of Vanity Fair sat astraddle on the table.
    • 2003, Don DeLillo, Cosmopolis, New York: Scribner, Part Two, Chapter 4, p. 177,
      She climbed his body and wrapped her legs around him and they made love there, man standing, woman astraddle, in the stone odor of demolition.

Translations

Preposition

astraddle

  1. In a straddling position on.
    • 1848, Joseph Holt Ingraham, Mark Manly: or, The Skipper’s Lad, New York: Williams Brothers, Chapter 2, p. 15,
      [] see that your men reload their muskets the meanwhile, ready for any old woman we may see riding through the air astraddle a broomstick.
    • 1969, Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, New York: Bantam, 1971, Chapter 3, p. 14,
      The used-to-be sheriff sat rakishly astraddle his horse.
    • 2011, Guy Vanderhaeghe, A Good Man, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, Chapter Twenty-Two, p. 359,
      He spies a group of Irish officers astraddle the road, conferring on horseback.

Synonyms

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