Definition of "spread"

spread

/spɹɛd/

verb
third-person singular simple present spreads, present participle spreading, simple past and past participle spread
1. (transitive) To stretch out, open out (a material etc.) so that it more fully covers a given area of space.
2. (transitive) To extend (individual rays, limbs etc.); to stretch out in varying or opposing directions.
3. (transitive) To disperse, to scatter or distribute over a given area.
4. (intransitive) To proliferate; to become more widely present, to be disseminated.
  Quotations
  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 not have done anything about war. But peace is a lot more peaceful.
  2013 July 20, “Old soldiers?”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845
  As the Erzurum affair indicated, the janissaries in the provinces and in the capital city were in close touch, and thus the movements were quick to spread to Istanbul.
  2018, Pál Fodor, The Business of State. Ottoman Finance Administration and Ruling Elites in Transition (1580s–1615) (Studien zur Sprache, Geschichte und Kultur der Turkvölker; 28), Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag × De Gruyter, published 2020, page 50
  I placed my hands on his cheeks, and this time, I kissed him. “Don't worry, I'm not going to let anything spoil our day. It's just you and me.” A sad smile spread across his face, and I could tell he wanted to believe me, but didn't.
  2018 June 25, L.P. Dover, Going for the Hole‎, Books by L.P. Dover, LLC
5. (transitive) To disseminate; to cause to proliferate, to make (something) widely known or present.
6. (intransitive) To take up a larger area or space; to expand, be extended.
7. (transitive) To smear, to distribute in a thin layer.
8. (transitive) To cover (something) with a thin layer of some substance, as of butter.
9. To prepare; to set and furnish with provisions.
  Quotations
  And Enid brought sweet cakes to make them cheer, / And in her veil enfolded, manchet bread. / And then, because their hall must also serve / For kitchen, boil'd the flesh, and spread the board, / And stood behind, and waited on the three.
  1859, Alfred Tennyson, “Enid”, in Idylls of the King, London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], page 21
10. (intransitive, slang) To open one’s legs, especially for sexual favours.
  Quotations
  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.
  1984, Martin Amis, Money
  Yes I wore a slinky red thing. Does that mean I should spread for you, your friends, your father, Mr Ed?
  1991, Tori Amos, Me and a Gun
  I don't want to move too fast, but / Can't resist your sexy ass / Just spread, spread for me; / (I can't, I can't wait to get you home)
  2003, Outkast, "Spread" (from the album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below)
noun
countable and uncountable, plural spreads
1. The act of spreading.
  Quotations
  No flower hath that kind of spread that the woodbine hath.
  1631, Francis [Bacon], “(please specify |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], 3rd edition, London: […] William Rawley; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […]
2. Something that has been spread.
3. (cartomancy) A layout, pattern or design of cards arranged for a reading.
4. An expanse of land.
  Quotations
  I have got a fine spread of improvable lands.
  November 29, 1712, Andrew Freeport, a letter to The Spectator
5. A large tract of land used to raise livestock; a cattle ranch.
  Quotations
  - Can't wait till I get my own spread and won't have to put up with Joe Aguirre's crap no more.- I'm savin' for a place myself.
  2005, Brokeback Mountain (film), 00:11:50
6. A piece of material used as a cover (such as a bedspread).
  Quotations
  Linen shawls and spreads show up in secondhand clothing stores like those in the row on St. Marks Place in New York City.
  1975, Douglas Matthews, Suzanne Wymelenberg, Susan Cheever Cowley, Secondhand is Better, page 166
7. A large meal, especially one laid out on a table.
8. (bread, etc.) Any form of food designed to be spread, such as butters or jams.
9. (military) A set of multiple torpedoes launched on side-by-side, slowly-diverging paths toward one or more enemy ships.
  Quotations
  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.
  2019 February 27, Drachinifel, 18:01 from the start, in The Battle of Samar - Odds? What are those?‎, archived from the original on 3 November 2022
10. (prison slang, uncountable) Food improvised by inmates from various ingredients to relieve the tedium of prison food.
11. An item in a newspaper or magazine that occupies more than one column or page.
12. Two facing pages in a book, newspaper etc.
13. A numerical difference.
14. (statistics) A measure of how far the data tend to deviate from the average.
15. (business, economics) The difference between the wholesale and retail prices.
16. (trading, economics, finance) The difference between the price of a futures month and the price of another month of the same commodity.
17. (trading, finance) The purchase of a futures contract of one delivery month against the sale of another futures delivery month of the same commodity.
18. (trading, finance) The purchase of one delivery month of one commodity against the sale of that same delivery month of a different commodity.
19. (trading) An arbitrage transaction of the same commodity in two markets, executed to take advantage of a profit from price discrepancies.
20. (trading) The difference between bidding and asking price.
21. (finance) The difference between the prices of two similar items.
22. (geometry) An unlimited expanse of discontinuous points.
23. The surface in proportion to the depth of a cut gemstone.
24. Excessive width of the trails of ink written on overly absorbent paper.