spread
Verbspreads, spreading, spread
Noun pluralspreads (some meanings)
Formsspreads, spreading, spread
Pluralspreads (some meanings)
- 1To reach or cover a wider area, or pass to more people or places, so that something becomes more widely present or known.
The disease spread rapidly across the region within weeks.
Misinformation tends to spread faster than the corrections that follow it.
UsagePast tense is spread (not
incorrect: spreaded). Use to for where it arrives, across or through for the area. - 2To cause something to proliferate or become widely known or present.
The campaign spread awareness of the disease across rural communities.
Social media can spread a single message to millions within hours.
UsageCommon with the word, news, rumors or germs: spread the word, spread germs to food.
Similardisseminate, circulate, propagate, broadcast
- 3To scatter or distribute something over a given area.
Volunteers spread sand over the icy paths each winter.
The wind spread the ashes across the valley.
UsageThe area usually follows over, across or on: spread seed over the field. Evenly is a common partner.
Similarscatter, sow, distribute
- 4The act or process by which something extends or distributes itself over a wider area.
Health officials raced to slow the spread of the infection.
The rapid spread of the new technology surprised even its inventors.
UsageUsually the spread of something, often after slow, stop or prevent: stop the spread of the disease.
Similarproliferation, diffusion, expansion, transmission, dissemination
- 5To put a soft substance in a thin layer over a surface, or to cover a surface with a substance in this way.
She spread a thin layer of mortar across the brick.
Cooks often spread softened butter over the dough before baking.
UsageSpread butter on or over the toast, or turn it round: spread the toast with butter.
- 6To open out or stretch something so that it covers a wider area, such as a cloth, a map, sails, a bird's wings, or a person's arms or fingers.
He spread the sails to catch the wind.
Campers spread their groundsheets before pitching the tents.
UsageOften with out: spread the map out on the table, spread out a blanket; also spread your arms or wings.
- 7To split something such as a cost, a series of payments, or a workload across a stretch of time or among a number of people.
The store lets customers spread payments over twelve months with no interest.
The new manager spread the workload more evenly across the team.
UsageCommon with cost, payments, risk: spread payments over twelve months; people follow across, among or between.
Similardistribute, divide, split, stagger
- 8A food meant to be applied in a layer over bread or crackers, such as butter or jam.
The café offers several vegan spreads made from nuts and beans.
He prefers a savory spread on his morning toast.
UsageOften after another noun: cheese spread, sandwich spread, chocolate spread.
Note
A grocery and kitchen category that covers anything soft enough to go on bread, not just butter and jam. Avram Davidson's "Or All The Seas With Oysters" (1958) has a character who experiments with sandwich spreads, his favorite being cream cheese, olives, anchovy and avocado mashed with mayonnaise.
- 9The gap found by subtracting one particular number, rate, or amount from another, such as two interest rates or the highest and lowest of a set of figures.
Analysts watched the spread between borrowing and lending rates widen.
A large spread in salaries can signal inequality within a company.
UsageUsually the spread between two figures, often described as wide or narrow.
Similardifferential, gap
- 10The difference between the highest price a buyer will offer and the lowest price a seller will accept.
Market makers profit from the spread between the bid and the offer.
In thinly traded stocks, a wide spread means you lose money the moment you buy, because you can only sell at the lower bid.
Note
The bid-ask spread is the price of trading immediately. A buyer generally pays the higher asking price, a seller receives the lower bid, and a market maker who buys at the bid and sells at the ask can earn the gap. It is a cost to traders and a source of income for market makers. It runs wider in thinly traded securities, where fewer people stand ready on either side.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 6 facts
- The bid-ask spread measures the cost of trading immediately. en.wikipedia.org
- Immediate buyers generally pay the ask and immediate sellers generally receive the bid. fidelity.com
- Quoting both sides does not guarantee receiving the spread. A market maker can earn it by buying at the bid and selling at the ask; inventory price changes affect the resulting revenue. sec.gov
- The spread is a trading cost. syndication.finra.org
- Spreads provide market-maker revenue. bis.org
- Thinly traded securities generally have wider spreads and fewer available counterparties. support.clearstreet.com
- 11To open one's legs, especially in offering sexual favors.
She had no intention of spreading for a promotion she had already earned.
He arrogantly assumed any woman would spread the moment he flashed his cash.
Note
Martin Amis's Money (1984) hears it in something like a demented DJ's rap.
- 12The breadth across something once it is fully opened out or extended, particularly across the crown of a plant or a bird's outstretched wings.
The old oak's branches have a spread of nearly ninety feet, shading half the yard.
The ranger measured the injured hawk's spread from one wingtip to the other before setting the bird free.
Less common meanings
- 13In sports betting, the number of points by which the favored team is expected to win, set in advance as a handicap.
The favorites covered the spread by winning by fourteen.
Sportsbooks set the spread at seven points before kickoff.
UsageSet phrase: a favored team covers the spread when it wins by more than the margin; an underdog covers by winning or losing by less.
Note
Sports betting's handicap. The bookmaker sets a margin: a bet on the favorite pays only if it wins by more, and a bet on the underdog pays if it wins or loses by less. John Paul Rollert, writing in Harper's Magazine in 2015, calls it the most popular wager in college basketball, ahead of the moneyline and the over-under.
- 14A newspaper or magazine feature that occupies more than one column or page.
The fashion editor commissioned a six-page spread on summer trends.
His investigation became a front-section spread in Sunday's edition.
UsageOften with a page count: a two-page spread, a six-page spread on summer trends.
Similarfeature, article, story
Note
Editors use the word for the story and the space it gets at once: a six-page spread is a feature given room to breathe. Don't confuse it with the two facing pages, which are the designer's unit. A feature can fill a pair of facing pages, but it can also run across several columns of a single page.
- 15The pair of facing pages visible when a book or magazine lies open.
The designer placed the timeline across a single spread.
Each spread in the album held photos from one summer.
- 16A large meal, especially one with many dishes laid out on a table.
The host prepared a lavish spread for the wedding guests.
They laid out quite a spread for the family reunion.
UsageUsually a spread, often lavish or huge, with verbs like lay out or put out: quite a spread.
- 17
- 18The extent to which the values in a dataset are scattered or vary.
Two classes can have the same average score, yet one may have a much wider spread, with some students failing and others near the top.
Two datasets can share an average yet differ greatly in spread.
Similardispersion, variability, variation
Note
The statistician's everyday word for dispersion: how widely the values scatter, as opposed to where their center lies. It names a concept rather than a single formula. In practice it is measured by the standard deviation or the variance, or more simply by the range or the interquartile range, and a report should say which measure it uses.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Spread describes dispersion or scatter, distinct from central location. archive.cdc.gov
- Spread is a general concept with several numerical measures, including standard deviation, variance, range and interquartile range. itl.nist.gov
- 19A broad expanse of open land stretching across the countryside.
A green spread of farmland reached down to the river.
Beyond the fence lay a vast spread of prairie.
Similarexpanse, stretch, sweep, tract, swath
Note
Land described by its reach, and often by what it could become. Sir Andrew Freeport, the merchant Addison voices in The Spectator (1712), boasts of "a fine spread of improvable lands." The word sounds like ownership and prospects as much as scenery, and it usually comes with an adjective: a fine, vast or green spread.
- 20An extensive tract of land used for raising livestock, especially a cattle ranch.
The rancher's spread stretched as far as the eye could see.
After years of saving, they finally bought a modest spread in Montana.
Similarranch, property, estate
Note
The ranch hand's word, often with a possessive: my own spread, their spread out west. In Brokeback Mountain (2005) a young worker says he "can't wait till I get my own spread" and be free of his boss. The word carries the hope of land of one's own, not just a measure of acreage.
- 21A layout or pattern in which cards are arranged for a divinatory reading.
She chose the Celtic Cross spread to explore the question in depth.
Different spreads suit different kinds of questions a querent might bring.
Similarlayout
Note
A card reader's word for the arrangement rather than the cards. The reader chooses a spread before dealing, and each position in it carries its own meaning, so the same card can say different things in different places. Spreads have names, such as the Celtic Cross, and the word is freely countable: different spreads suit different questions.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- A spread is a predetermined arrangement used when laying out the cards. learntarot.com
- Positions have distinct meanings that affect the interpretation of the cards occupying them. en.wikisource.org
- The Celtic Cross is a named card-reading spread. en.wikipedia.org
- Different layouts are recommended for different kinds of inquiry. en.wikisource.org
- 22To prepare a table or meal, setting it out and furnishing it with provisions.
The innkeeper spread a generous table for the weary travelers.
Every harvest, the family would spread a feast for everyone who had helped.
Oppositeclear
Note
A table, a board or a feast is the usual object: to spread a table is to set food out on it for others. Tennyson uses the construction in Idylls of the King (1859), where Enid "boil'd the flesh, and spread the board" in a hall that also served as kitchen. The noun a large laid-out meal shows the same scene from the guest's side.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote Idylls of the King. en.wikisource.org
- The work first appeared in 1859. farringford.co.uk
- The narrator describes Enid with the exact words quoted, in a hall that also served as a kitchen. en.wiktionary.org
- 23Something that has been spread out or distributed over a surface.
- 24The difference between the price of one futures delivery month and that of another month for the same commodity.
- 25A trade that buys a futures contract for one delivery month while simultaneously selling another delivery month of the same commodity.
- 26Several torpedoes fired together along side-by-side paths that fan out slowly, aimed at one or more enemy ships.
- 27An unlimited expanse consisting of discontinuous, separate points.
- 28A dish that prisoners put together themselves from commissary snacks and other items, to break the monotony of jail meals.
- 29In futures trading, buying a contract for one commodity while selling a contract for a different commodity due in the same month.
- 30A trade that buys a commodity in one market and sells it in another to profit from a gap between their prices.
- 31In gem cutting, how wide a stone's face is compared with how deep it is cut.
- 32The blurring and widening of pen strokes when ink soaks too far into paper that absorbs it too readily.
- 33In competitive debate, to deliver arguments at extremely high speed so as to fit in as many as possible.
- 34In competitive debate, the practice or an instance of speaking at extreme speed to pack in arguments.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
Behind it is a Proto-Indo-European root meaning 'to strew, sow, sprinkle', which led to Proto-Germanic *spraidijaną; that became Old English sprǣdan ('to spread, expand') and then Middle English spreden. Related words meaning 'to spread' include Dutch spreiden, German spreiten, and Swedish sprida.