bestride

1. (transitive) To be astride something, to stand over or sit on with legs on either side, especially to sit on a horse.Examples: "& 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""; "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."; "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."Synonyms: straddletransitive

2. (transitive) To stride over, or across.transitive

3. (transitive, figuratively) To dominate.Examples: "Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world / Like a Colossus[…]."; "He looked up again at the portrait of Big Brother. The colossus that bestrode the world!"; "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."figurativelytransitive