Also spread-eagle. [SPREAD ppl. a.]
1. A representation of an eagle with body, legs, and both wings displayed, esp. as the emblem of various states or rulers, or as an inn-sign.
1570. Foxe, A. & M. (ed. 2), 388/1. The emperour … caused other mony to be made of leather, which on the one syde had his image, and on the other syde the spread egle.
1590. in Archaeol. (1884), XLVIII. 154. One dammaske table clothe wrought with ye Spreed Egle of vij yerdes long.
1602. J. Willis, Art Stenographie, E 5. This Character, bearing the similitude of a Spread Eagle, may signifie the Romaine Empire, being the Ensigne thereof.
1685. Wood, Life (O.H.S.), III. 160. At the Spread Eagle (commonly called the Spread Crow).
1701. Luttrell, Brief Rel. (1857), V. 81. Some flags are made here with a spread eagle upon them, the arms of his imperial majesty.
1723. Pres. St. Russia, I. 115. Post-boys … have no Post-Horns, but only the Mark of the Spread-Eagle.
1854. Poultry Chron., II. 27. The annual dinner will take place at the Spread Eagle on Thursday.
Comb. 1663. Dryden, Wild Gallant, II. i. I use to tell him of his two capon’s tails about his hat, that are laid spread-eaglewise to make a feather.
b. A figure in fancy-skating.
1824. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. I. (1863), 15. He admired, with an ardour and sincerity never excited by … the spread-eagles of the Seine and the Serpentine.
1868. Hurst Johnian Mag., X. 343. As I am writing for young skaters I may as well mention the ‘spread eagle,’ a feat of not much value.
c. A boastful or self-assertive person.
1881. Blackmore, Christowell, i. It may be denied by young spread-eagles, of competitive and unruly mind, that this is the highest form of human life.
2. A person secured with the arms and legs stretched out, esp. in order to be flogged.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulgar T., Spread eagle, a soldier tied to the halberts in order to be whipped, his attitude bearing some likeness to that figure, as painted on signs.
1792. Grose’s Olio, 228. Should you be caught, you know the consequence—That the spread eagle is your certain lot.
1834. Marryat, P. Simple (1863), 38. Mr. Jenkins desired the other men to get half-a-dozen foxes and make a spread eagle of me.
1882. Daily Tel., 12 Sept., 2/2. The iron-hard pressure of it pins you against the shrouds as if you had been made a spread-eagle.
fig. 1871. Froude, Table-T. Shirley, 149. I suppose I shall as usual be made a spread-eagle by the Saturday [Review].
3. A fowl flattened out for broiling.
1854. ‘C. Bede,’ Verdant Green, II. vii. Spread-eagle is a barn-door fowl smashed out flat, and made jolly with mushroom sauce.
1865. Visct. Milton & W. B. Cheadle, Northwest Passage by Land, ii. (1867), 22. We manage at last to pluck and split open the ducks into ‘spread-eagles,’ roasting them on sticks, Indian fashion.
4. attrib. a. High-sounding, grandiloquent.
1839. Morn. Post, 21 Sept. The notion of lifting him with a spread-eagle title into the chief saloon.
b. U.S. Bombastic, extravagant, ridiculously boastful, esp. in laudation of the United States.
In allusion to the figure of the eagle on United States flags, etc.
1858. Harper’s Weekly, 28 Aug., 546/4 (Thornton). The sermon was a splendid failure—a much ado about nothing—and is yet laughed at as ‘the Spread Eagle Sermon,’ as a puerile exhibition of vanity.
1858. N. Amer. Rev., Oct., 454. It pleases our English critics to charge upon American writers in the mass … what has come to be designated as ‘the spread-eagle style’—a compound of exaggeration, effrontery, bombast, and extravagance.
1894. H. Gardener, Unoff. Patriot, 125. You’ve read a lot of spread-eagle stuff, I don’t doubt.
c. Aggressively assertive of United States interests or claims.
1885. Pall Mall Gaz., 2 Jan., 2/1. The new form of spread-eagle policy which the past year had witnessed.
5. attrib. Suggestive of the form or appearance of a spread eagle.
Spread-eagle orchid, a popular name (U.S.) for the orchid Oncidium Carthaginense.
1856. ‘Stonehenge,’ Brit. Rur. Sports, 376. That ‘spread-eagle’ style of gallop which destroys a horse’s chances at once.
1881. Mahaffy, Old Gk. Educ., iii. 32. Wild swinging of their arms, in spread-eagle fashion.
1894. Daily Tel., 7 May, 5/4. The ‘spread-eagle’ system adopted by cyclists, who straggle all over the road.
