spread

verb spreads · spreading · spread

1. transitive To stretch out, open out (a material etc.) so that it more fully covers a given area of space. He spread his newspaper on the table.
2. transitive To extend (individual rays, limbs etc.); to stretch out in varying or opposing directions. simple past and past participle of spread I spread my arms wide and welcomed him home.
3. transitive To disperse, to scatter or distribute over a given area. I spread the rice grains evenly over the floor.

   Similar: sow, suffuse, pervade

4. intransitive To proliferate; to become more widely present, to be disseminated. Whether modern, industrial man is less or more warlike than his hunter-gatherer ancestors is impossible to determine.[…]One thing that is true, though, is that murder rates have fallen over the centuries, as policing has spread and the routine carrying of weapons has diminished. Modern society may n
5. transitive To disseminate; to cause to proliferate, to make (something) widely known or present. The missionaries quickly spread their new message across the country.

   Similar: sweep

6. intransitive To take up a larger area or space; to expand, be extended. I dropped my glass; the water spread quickly over the tiled floor.

   Similar: sweep

7. transitive To smear, to distribute in a thin layer. She liked to spread butter on her toast while it was still hot.
8. transitive To cover (something) with a thin layer of some substance, as of butter. He always spreads his toast with peanut butter and strawberry jam.
9. To prepare; to set and furnish with provisions. to spread a table
10. intransitive, slang To open one’s legs, especially for sexual favours. This often sounds like the rap of a demented DJ: the way she moves has got to be good news, can't get loose till I feel the juice— suck and spread, bitch, yeah bounce for me baby.

Similar: disseminate, circulate, propagate, diffuse, put about

noun spreads

1. countable, uncountable The act of spreading. No flower hath that kind of spread that the woodbine hath.
2. countable, uncountable Something that has been spread.
3. countable, uncountable A layout, pattern or design of cards arranged for a reading.
4. countable, uncountable An expanse of land. November 29, 1712, Andrew Freeport, a letter to The Spectator I have got a fine spread of improvable lands.
5. countable, uncountable A large tract of land used to raise livestock; a cattle ranch. - Can't wait till I get my own spread and won't have to put up with Joe Aguirre's crap no more.
6. countable, uncountable A piece of material used as a cover (such as a bedspread). Linen shawls and spreads show up in secondhand clothing stores like those in the row on St. Marks Place in New York City.
7. countable, uncountable A large meal, especially one laid out on a table.
8. countable, uncountable, usually Any form of food designed to be spread, such as butters or jams. Ferd liked to experiment with sandwich spreads ― the one he liked most was cream-cheese, olives, anchovy and avocado, mashed up with a little mayonnaise ― but Oscar always had the same pink luncheon-meat.
9. countable, uncountable A set of multiple torpedoes launched on side-by-side, slowly-diverging paths toward one or more enemy ships. Johnston, meanwhile, has managed to get within five miles of its target, and fires a full spread of ten torpedoes. Minutes later, at least two, possibly three, tear the bow off the hapless cruiser Kumano. First blood, unbelievably, therefore, goes to the Americans.
10. slang, uncountable Food improvised by inmates from various ingredients to relieve the tedium of prison food.

    Similar: swole

11. countable, uncountable An item in a newspaper or magazine that occupies more than one column or page.
12. countable, uncountable Two facing pages in a book, newspaper etc.
13. countable, uncountable A numerical difference.
14. countable, uncountable A measure of how far the data tend to deviate from the average. The spread is usually measured using standard deviation and variance.
15. countable, uncountable The difference between the wholesale and retail prices.
16. countable, uncountable The difference between the price of a futures month and the price of another month of the same commodity.
17. countable, uncountable The purchase of a futures contract of one delivery month against the sale of another futures delivery month of the same commodity.
18. countable, uncountable The purchase of one delivery month of one commodity against the sale of that same delivery month of a different commodity.
19. countable, uncountable An arbitrage transaction of the same commodity in two markets, executed to take advantage of a profit from price discrepancies.
20. countable, uncountable The difference between bidding and asking price.
21. countable, uncountable The difference between the prices of two similar items.
22. countable, uncountable An unlimited expanse of discontinuous points.
23. countable, uncountable The surface in proportion to the depth of a cut gemstone.
24. countable, uncountable Excessive width of the trails of ink written on overly absorbent paper.
25. countable, uncountable The difference between the teams' final scores at the end of a sport match. College basketball games don't lack for gambling propositions—the moneyline, a straightforward wager on which team will win; the over-under gamble on the total number of points scored by both teams—but the most popular wager is the spread. The spread represents the predicted difference between the t

Similar: straddle

verb spreads · spreading · spread

1. intransitive, transitive To speedread; to recite one's arguments at an extremely fast pace. You're assuming that if someone spreads they aren't a good orator. That's flawed logic.

noun spreads

1. An act or instance of spreading (speedreading). If debate is a game, then the execution of a "spread" is like a well-timed blitz in football. Convincing a judge that your opponents' arguments would cause human extinction is equivalent to a successful Hail Mary pass.