subs. phr. (old).—1. A posture: arms (wings or fins) and legs extended: e.g., a soldier lashed to the halberts (GROSE), or a sailor to the rigging; a fowl split down the back for broiling; fish split and laid out to dry; and (2) a figure in skating imitating the heraldic ‘Eagle displayed’ [i.e., with wings and legs extended on each side of the body]. As verb. = (1) to tie up for punishment; (2) to prepare poultry or fish for broiling or drying; and (3) in racing to scatter the FIELD (q.v.).
1684. DRYDEN, The History of the League, Postscript. II. 469. A kind of SPREAD EAGLE plot was hatched, with two heads growing out of the same body: such twin treasons are apt to struggle like Esau and Jacob in the womb, and both endeavouring to be the first born, the younger pulls back the elder by the heel.
1835. R. H. DANA, Jr., Two Years Before the Mast, xv. ‘Answer my question, or I’ll make a SPREAD EAGLE of you! I ’ll flog you, by G—d.’ … ‘SPREAD EAGLES’ were a new kind of bird in California.
1885. Daily Chronicle, 27 Oct. Caltha SPREAD-EAGLED her field a long way from home.
1887. Notes and Queries, 7 S., iv. 278. Cod—as well as haddock and ling … may be seen SPREAD-EAGLED across transverse sticks to dry.
1900. KENNARD, The Right Sort, xxv. Young Rassington’s horse shot out like an arrow from a bow, and SPREAD-EAGLING his field in a style not often seen.
2. (stock exchange).—See quots.
1857. Hunt’s Merchants’ Magazine, xxxvii. July, 136. SPREAD EAGLE. This is a term frequently used among stock speculators. A broker, satisfied with small profits … sells, say 100 shares Erie Railroad stock at 58, buyer 60 days, and at the same time buys the same quantity at 57, seller 60 days. The difference is … one per cent, which would be so much profit, without any outlay of capital, provided both contracts run their full time. Having sold buyer’s option 60 days, and bought seller’s option 60 days, the time is equal, but … he does not control the option in either case. The buyer can call when he pleases, which would compel the ‘SPREAD EAGLE’ operator to deliver, and the seller may deliver any time, which would compel the broker to receive. If he has capital to carry, the result would not differ from that first anticipated, but if not, he may be caught in a tight place.
1882. A. and G. BIDDLE, A Treatise on the Law of Stock Brokers, 74. SPREAD EAGLE, is where a broker buys a certain stock at seller’s option, and sells the same at seller’s option within a certain time, on the chance that both the contracts may run the full time and he gain the difference.
Adj. (American).—Bombastic; espec. in reference to national vanity. Whence SPREAD-EAGLEISM = patriotic brag. As verb. = to play the good American till all is split.
1858. North American Review, clxxxi. Oct., 454. ‘The SPREAD-EAGLE style,’—a compound of exaggeration, effrontery, bombast, and extravagance, mixed metaphors, platitudes, defiant threats thrown at the world, and irreverent appeals flung at the Supreme Being.
1871. J. R. LOWELL, My Study Windows, 375. We Yankees are thought to be fond of the SPREAD-EAGLE Style.
1873. Historical Magazine, Sept., ‘Review of Mission of the North American People, Geographical, Social, and Political.’ A very singular [volume] … with very much of that slam, bang, SPREAD-EAGLE literature which has made George Francis Train so notorious the world over.
1884. S. L. CLEMENS (‘Mark Twain’), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, xx. The duke got out his book and read the parts over in the most splendid SPREAD-EAGLE way.
1885. Daily Telegraph, 29 Nov. A fact resented by the SPREAD-EAGLEISM of the place in journalistic lenders.
1887. The Fortnightly Review, N. S., March, 330. When we talk of ‘SPREAD-EAGLEISM’ we are generally thinking of the United States.
