astraddle of

astraddle of

1. In a straddling position on.
   • 1872, Mark Twain, Roughing It, Hartford, Connecticut: American Publishing Company, Chapter 7, p. 64,

     I fell at the foot of the only solitary tree there was in nine counties adjacent […] , and the next second I had hold of the bark with four sets of nails and my teeth, and the next second after that I was astraddle of the main limb and blaspheming my luck in a way that made my breath smell of brimstone.

   • 1958, Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable in Three Novels by Samuel Beckett, New York: Grove, p. 471,

     Charming hour of the day, particularly when, as sometimes happens, it is also that of the setting sun whose last rays, raking the street from end to end, lend to my cenotaph an interminable shadow, astraddle of the gutter and the sidewalk.

• astraddle