bestride
English
WOTD – 29 April 2012
Etymology
From Middle English bestriden, from Old English bestrīdan; equivalent to be- + stride. Compare Dutch bestrijden, German bestreiten.
Pronunciation
- (General American) IPA(key): /bəˈstɹaɪd/
- (Midland US)
IPA(key): [bɪˈstɹaɪd]
- (Midland US)
- Rhymes: -aɪd
Verb
bestride (third-person singular simple present bestrides, present participle bestriding, simple past bestrode, past participle bestrode or bestridden or bestrid)
- (transitive) To be astride something, to stand over or sit on with legs on either side, especially to sit on a horse.
- Synonym: straddle
- 1816, William Wordsworth, Composed in Recollection of the Expedition of the French into Russia, February 1816, line 27-31:
- But fleeter far the pinions of the Wind, / Which from Siberian caves the monarch freed, / And sent him forth, with squadrons of his kind, / And bade the Snow their ample backs bestride, / And to the battle ride.
- 1885, Richard Burton (translator), The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, published by private subscription, Vol. I edition, page 172:
- He threw in my way a piece of timber which I bestrided, and the waves tossed me to and fro till they cast me upon an island coast […]
- 1962 August, G. Freeman Allen, “Traffic control on the Great Northern Line”, in Modern Railways, page 128:
- Apart from the traffic that is originated within its own district, Doncaster is the hub of many important Eastern Region flows. [...] It bestrides busy routes to and from the Midlands and, of course, is a landmark on the East Coast trunk route between north and south.
- 1967, Joseph Singer and Elaine Gottlieb, “Chapter 2”, in Farrar, Straus and Giroux, editor, The Manor, New York, translation of original by Isaac Bashevis Singer, part II, page 29:
- […] she would take the betrothal document from her father's chest of drawers and pore over the signature: Ezriel Babad. […] His signature seemed to bestride her own.
- 1998, Christopher Reich, Numbered Account, New York: Delacorte:
- He made out a stubby automobile bestriding the narrow road.
- (transitive) To stride over, or across.
- (transitive, figuratively) To dominate.
- c. 1599, William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Act I Scene II:
- Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world / Like a Colossus […] .
- 1949 June 8, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter 6, in Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, London: Secker & Warburg, OCLC 690663892; republished [Australia]: Project Gutenberg of Australia, August 2001:
- He looked up again at the portrait of Big Brother. The colossus that bestrode the world!
- 1962, Ezekiel Mphahlele, “Chapter 5”, in Frederick A. Praeger, editor, The African Image, New York, page 86:
- You see, Jim Crow does it differently in Africa. His is a slow but tight and deadly squeeze. […] He bestrides this continent from Algiers to Cape Town, and the guns around his belt face east, west, south and north.
- 1990, Anthony Paul, “Dutch Literature and the Translation Barrier”, in Bart Westerweel and Theo D'haen, editor, Something Understood: Studies in Anglo-Dutch Literary Translation, Amsterdam: Rodopi, page 65:
- Over the past two hundred years the English language has risen, seemingly irresistably, to its present position of world-bestriding supremacy.
-
Translations
to sit with legs on both sides of something
|
dominate — see dominate
References
- “bestride”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
Anagrams
- bedrites, bistered, breedist, debrites, redebits
Norwegian Bokmål
Alternative forms
- bestri
Etymology
From Middle Low German bestriden.
Verb
bestride (imperative bestrid, present tense bestrider, simple past bestred or bestrei or bestridde, past participle bestridd or bestridt, present participle bestridende)
- to contest or dispute (something)
Derived terms
- ubestridt
References
- “bestride” in The Bokmål Dictionary.