Definition of "bestride"
bestride
verb
third-person singular simple present bestrides, present participle bestriding, simple past bestrode, past participle bestrode or bestridden or bestrid
(transitive) To be astride something, to stand over or sit on with legs on either side, especially to sit on a horse.
Quotations
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.
1816, William Wordsworth, Composed in Recollection of the Expedition of the French into Russia, February 1816, lines 27–31
Apart from the traffic that is originated within its own district, Doncaster is the hub of many important Eastern Region flows. [...] It bestrides busy routes to and from the Midlands and, of course, is a landmark on the East Coast trunk route between north and south.
1962 August, G. Freeman Allen, “Traffic control on the Great Northern Line”, in Modern Railways, page 128
[…] she would take the betrothal document from her father's chest of drawers and pore over the signature: Ezriel Babad. […] His signature seemed to bestride her own.
1967, Joseph Singer, Elaine Gottlieb, “Chapter 2”, in Farrar, Straus and Giroux, editor, The Manor, New York, translation of original by Isaac Bashevis Singer, part II, page 29
(transitive, figuratively) To dominate.
Quotations
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.
1962, Ezekiel Mphahlele, “Chapter 5”, in Frederick A. Praeger, editor, The African Image, New York, page 86
Over the past two hundred years the English language has risen, seemingly irresistably, to its present position of world-bestriding supremacy.
1990, Anthony Paul, “Dutch Literature and the Translation Barrier”, in Bart Westerweel, Theo D'haen, editors, Something Understood: Studies in Anglo-Dutch Literary Translation, Amsterdam: Rodopi, page 65