/ · 1894 Brewer’s · S · Spread-eagle (To)
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To fly away like a spread-eagle; to beat. (Sporting term.)
“Youʹll spread-eagle all the [other] cattle in a brace of shakes.”—Ouida: Under Two Flags, chap. ix.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.