[f. next.]
I. The action of the verb.
1. The action of walking, standing or sitting with the legs wide apart.
1611. Middleton & Dekker, Roaring Girl, III. i. F 2. I knew you by your wide straddle.
1771[?]. Walpole, Let. Lady Coke, ? Oct.–Nov., Lett. 1904, VIII. 99. You are, I know, Madam, an excellent walker, yet methinks seven leagues at once are a prodigious straddle for a fair lady.
1784. H. Macneill, Whip, Poet. Wks. 1801, I. 100. No female Phaetonians then Surpass’d the boldest of our men In gesture, look, and straddle.
1815. Hist. John Decastro & Bat, II. 59. However, he made a straddle of it and took the crown thereof very well between his knees.
transf. 1780. Cowper, Rep. Adjudged Case, 14. Your lordship observes they [the spectacles] are made with a straddle, As wide as the bridge of the Nose is; in short, Designed to sit close to it, just like a saddle.
b. The distance between the feet or legs of one who straddles.
1864. in Webster; and in later Dicts.
2. U.S. Exchange slang. A ‘privilege’ or speculative contract in any one market or class of commodities, covering both a ‘put’ and a ‘call’—that is, giving the holder the right at his option (1) of calling, within a specified number of days, for delivery of an ascertained quantity of the commodity at a stated price, or (2) of delivering to the person to whom the consideration had been paid an ascertained quantity of another (or, less usually, of the same) commodity at a stated price. Hence, applied to an analogous contract on the Stock-exchange. Also called spread-eagle (Cent. Dict., 1891).
1883. M. Howland, in Harper’s Mag., March, 598/1. They [sc. brokers] always talked of ‘margins,’ and ‘puts,’ and ‘calls,’ and ‘straddles.’
1892. Stevenson & L. Osbourne, Wrecker, i. 25. My father … was trying at this time a ‘straddle’ in wheat between Chicago and New York.
1893. Cordingley, Guide Stock Exch., 123. Straddle … is also an American term for a ‘Put and Call,’ but used when the price is the same whether the Stock is ‘put’ or ‘called.’
1902. A. Lang, in Longman’s Mag., April, 485. The lady’s wealth is based on a successful Straddle, operated by her only known male ancestor, in—Bristles—Hogs’ Bristles and Lard.
b. In British use: See quot.
1902. L’pool Corn Trade Assoc. Ltd., Section J, Bye-laws relating to Brokerages on grain futures. Straddles When a broker executes an order to buy grain deliverable in a certain specified month, executing at the same time an order to sell the same quantity and description deliverable in another specified month, he shall be at liberty to carry out both transactions for one brokerage.
3. U.S. Politics (colloq.). An attempt to take an equivocal or non-committal position in a party platform (Cent. Dict., 1891).
1883. American, VI. 26 May, 100/1. That his demand for an endorsement of Free Trade could not be yielded to, and that expediency demanded a ‘straddle’ that could be explained either way.
1890. C. L. Norton, Polit. Americanisms, 109. Straddle.—A stock-broker’s term which acquired a political meaning during the campaign of 1884.
4. Poker. A doubling of the ‘blind’ or stake by one of the players.
1882. Poker; how to play it, 49. The straddle is nothing more than a double blind.
1897. [see STAY v.1 13].
II. Something that straddles or is straddled.
5. † a. (Meaning obscure.) Obs.
1684. Phil. Trans., XIV. 666. Land Carriage by draught, is by Wheele-barrows, Straddles, Carts of 2 wheels, Sleds, Wagons [etc.].
b. = SADDLE sb. 3.
1825. Jamieson.
1837. Lover, Rory O’More, I. xi. 253. From the rudely constructed straddle of the sorry animal,… a budget containing the implements of the tinker’s trade, depended.
1882. E. O’Donovan, Merv Oasis, II. xlviii. 308. A beam … was in turn attached to a straddle fastened to the back of a camel.
6. Mining. (? U.S.) Each of the vertical timbers by which the different sets are supported in a shaft (Cent. Dict., 1891).
III. 7. Comb.: straddleback adv., with the legs astraddle; straddle-band, the band that secures the ‘straddle’ on a horse’s back; straddlebob dial., a black beetle (cf. STRADDLE-BUG); straddle-breech a., a contemptuous epithet applied to one who straddles; straddle-fashion adv., in a straddling position, astride; straddle-leg(s adv., with the legs astride; also attrib.; straddle-legged a., having the legs set wide apart; adv., with the legs astride; straddle mill, -pipe, -plow (see (see quots.); straddle-wise adv. = straddle-fashion.
1839. Thackeray, Leg. St. Sophia of Kioff. She gets on the Prior’s shoulder *straddleback.
1901. Jane Barlow, From Land of Shamrock, 288. I noticed the *straddle-band lookin’ uncommon quare and wake.
1847. Halliwell, *Straddlebob, a blackbeetle. I. Wight.
1682. T. Flatman, Heraclitus Ridens, No. 60 (1713), II. 126. Then there was our old *Straddle-breech Friend.
1873. Routledge’s Young Gentl. Mag., Nov., 32/2. Seating himself *straddle-fashion across a chair.
1836. Haliburton, Clockm., Ser. I. xxxii. That Captain has nothin to do all day, but sit *straddle legs across his tiller.
1868. Routledge’s Young Gentl. Mag., 597. Over the shaft were fastened three poles, straddle-legs fashion.
1892. P. H. Emerson, Son of Fens, vii. 60. I went and sat straddle-leg across the horse of the bowsplit.
1817. Hazlitt, Pol. Ess. (1819), 213. The monstrous *straddle-legged figure of that legitimate monarch, Henry VIII.
1858–9. Russell, Diary India (1860), I. xiv. 229. The wives of the binneahs who sit straddle-legged on the tiniest of donkeys.
1911. Webster, *Stradale mill, a milling cutter … commonly used in pairs a fixed distance apart so as to straddle the work, for sizing nuts, boltheads, etc.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., *Straddle-pipe, (Gas), a bridge-pipe connecting the retort with the hydraulic main. Ibid., *Straddle-plow, a plow with two triangular, parallel shares, a little distance apart, and used for running on each side of a row of dropped corn, to cover the seed.
1865. Le Fanu, Guy Deverill, II. xiv. Little Linnett, mounted *straddlewise on his chair.
