# bestride
## English
### Etymology

From Middle English bestriden, from Old English bestrīdan; equivalent to be- +‎ stride. Compare Dutch bestrijden, German bestreiten.

### Pronunciation

* (General American) IPA: /bɪˈstɹaɪd/, /bəˈstɹaɪd/
** Audio:(file)
* Rhymes: -aɪd

### Verb

bestride (third-person singular simple present bestrides, present participle bestriding, simple past bestrode, past participle bestrode or bestridden or bestrid)
* (transitive) To be astride something, to stand over or sit on with legs on either side, especially to sit on a horse.
    Synonym: straddle
** 1485, Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur Book XXI, Chapter xiii, leaf 430v:& thou were the truest frende to thy louar that euer bestrade hors "And thou were the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrad horse"
** 1816, William Wordsworth, Composed in Recollection of the Expedition of the French into Russia, February 1816‎, lines 27–31:But fleeter far the pinions of the Wind, / Which from Siberian caves the monarch freed, / And sent him forth, with squadrons of his kind, / And bade the Snow their ample backs bestride, / And to the battle ride.
** 1852, The Crystal Palace and Its Contents, page 139:The knightly Crusader bestrides a war-horse of heavy proportions , which he has suddenly reined in , as he waves on high a flag as a rallying sign for his followers.
** 1885, Richard Burton, transl., The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night‎, published by private subscription, Vol. I edition, page 172:He threw in my way a piece of timber which I bestrided, and the waves tossed me to and fro till they cast me upon an island coast […]
** 1962 August, G. Freeman Allen, “Traffic control on the Great Northern Line”, in Modern Railways, page 128:Apart from the traffic that is originated within its own district, Doncaster is the hub of many important Eastern Region flows. [...] It bestrides busy routes to and from the Midlands and, of course, is a landmark on the East Coast trunk route between north and south.
** 1967, Joseph Singer, Elaine Gottlieb, “Chapter 2”, in Farrar, Straus and Giroux, editor, The Manor, New York, translation of original by Isaac Bashevis Singer, part II, page 29:[…] she would take the betrothal document from her father's chest of drawers and pore over the signature: Ezriel Babad. […] His signature seemed to bestride her own.
** 1981, Gene Wolfe, chapter VIII, in The Claw of the Conciliator (The Book of the New Sun; 2), New York: Timescape, →ISBN, page 71:Again I bestride the mitred, leather-winged steed.
** 1998, Christopher Reich, Numbered Account‎, New York: Delacorte:He made out a stubby automobile bestriding the narrow road.
* (transitive) To stride over, or across.
* (transitive, figuratively) To dominate.
** c. 1599, William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Act I Scene II:Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world / Like a Colossus […] .
** 1949 June 8, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter 6, in Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC; republished [Australia]: Project Gutenberg of Australia, August 2001:He looked up again at the portrait of Big Brother. The colossus that bestrode the world!
** 1962, Ezekiel Mphahlele, “Chapter 5”, in Frederick A. Praeger, editor, The African Image‎, New York, page 86:You see, Jim Crow does it differently in Africa. His is a slow but tight and deadly squeeze. […] He bestrides this continent from Algiers to Cape Town, and the guns around his belt face east, west, south and north.
** 1990, Anthony Paul, “Dutch Literature and the Translation Barrier”, in Bart Westerweel, Theo D'haen, editors, Something Understood: Studies in Anglo-Dutch Literary Translation‎, Amsterdam: Rodopi, page 65:Over the past two hundred years the English language has risen, seemingly irresistably, to its present position of world-bestriding supremacy.

#### Translations
### References

* “bestride”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

### Anagrams

* bedrites, bistered, breedist, debrites, redebits

## Norwegian Bokmål
### Alternative forms

* bestri

### Etymology

From Middle Low German bestriden.

### Verb

bestride (imperative bestrid, present tense bestrider, simple past bestred or bestrei or bestridde, past participle bestridd or bestridt, present participle bestridende)
* to contest or dispute (something)

#### Derived terms

* ubestridt

### References

* “bestride” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

## Old English
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /beˈstriː.de/
* IPA: /beˈstri.de/

### Verb

bestrīde
* inflection of bestrīdan:
** first-person singular present indicative
** singular present subjunctive

### Verb

bestride
* inflection of bestrīdan:
** second-person singular preterite indicative
** singular preterite subjunctive