spread-eagle

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. adj. Positioned with the arms and legs stretched out.
2. adj. Informal Full of patriotic or jingoistic rhetoric.
3. v. To place in a spread-eagle position, especially as a means of punishment.
4. v. To assume a spread-eagle position.
5. v. To make a grandiloquent, patriotic speech.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. Having the form or characteristics of a spread eagle, or of the kind of display so called; hence, ostentatious; bombastic; boastful: as, a spread-eagle oration. See spread eagle, under eagle.
2. To stretch out in the attitude of a spread eagle.

Wiktionary

1. adj. Lying with arms and legs outstretched and separated.
2. adj. colloquial, humorous Characterized by a pretentious, boastful, exaggerated style; bombastic.
3. adv. With arms and legs extended and spread.
4. v. transitive To put into a spread-eagle position, with arms and legs extended and spread.
5. v. intransitive To put one's body in a spread eagle.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. (Her.) An eagle displayed; an eagle with the wings and legs extended on each side of the body, as in the double-headed eagle of Austria and Russia. See Displayed, 2.
2. adj. Colloq. & Humorous Characterized by a pretentious, boastful, exaggerated style; defiantly or extravagantly bombastic, especially regarding of the greatness of the U. S..
3. v. To assume a spread-eagled position; -- it may be done reclining, for relaxation, or momentarily, as an exhibitionary maneuver in a sport.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a skating figure executed with the skates heel to heel in a straight line
2. n. an emblem (an eagle with wings and legs spread) on the obverse of the Great Seal of the United States
3. v. execute a spread eagle on skates, with arms and legs stretched out
4. v. defeat disastrously
5. v. stretch out completely
6. adj. with arms and legs stretched out and apart
7. v. stretch over
8. v. stand with arms and legs spread out
9. v. defeat disastrously