straddling, ppl. a.
(ˈstrædlɪŋ)
[f. straddle v. + -ing2.]
1. That straddles, in the senses of the verb.
| 1592 Nashe P. Penilesse A 3, At length..I lighted vpon an old straddling Usurer. 1615 Crooke Body of Man 102 Epiplois postica..diuided into two stradling branches. a 1652 Brome Mad Couple (1653) To Stationer, No stradling Tetrasyllables are brought To fill up room, and little spell, or nought. 1679 Lond. Gaz. No. 1403/4 A Strawberry py'd Gelding,.. all his paces, and a stradling gate behind. 1765 H. Walpole Let. to Miss Anne Pitt 25 Dec., May the chimney be widened, without which it can never be a French chimney, which is always very low and straddling? 1831 Youatt Horse x. 165 [In anchylosis] the horse..has a curious straddling action. 1848 Dickens Haunted Man i. 9 The shadows..making..the very tongs upon the hearth, a straddling giant with his arms a-kimbo. 1875 Knight Dict. Mech., Straddling (Vehicle), applied to spokes when they are arranged alternately in two circles in the hub. Also said to be staggered. |
2. Bot. Divaricate.
| 1796 Withering Brit. Plants (ed. 3) I. 84 Straddling (divaricatus) branches standing wide from each other. Ibid. II. 26 Bulbs straight, not much straddling. 1825 Greenhouse Comp. II. 25 Malva divaricata, straddling Mallow. |
| Comb. 1822 Hortus Angl. II. 399 Straddling-branched Star Wort. |