straddle

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• intransitive verb To stand or sit with a leg on each side of; bestride.
• intransitive verb To be on both sides of; extend over or across.
• intransitive verb To appear to favor both sides of (an issue).
• intransitive verb To fire shots behind and in front of (a target) in order to determine the range.
• intransitive verb To walk, stand, or sit with the legs wide apart, especially to sit astride.
• intransitive verb To spread out in a disorderly way; sprawl.
• intransitive verb To appear to favor both sides of an issue.
• intransitive verb To place a bet in poker before the cards are dealt that is twice the amount of the big blind when one is immediately to the left of the big blind.
• noun The act or posture of sitting astride.
• noun An equivocal or a noncommittal position.
• noun The simultaneous purchase or sale of a call option and a put option with the same strike price and expiration date as a means of speculating on the degree of price change in the underlying asset.
• noun The bet made when straddling in poker.
• idiom (straddle the fence) To be undecided or uncommitted.

from The Century Dictionary.

• Astride; with straddled legs: as, to ride straddle.
• noun The act of standing or sitting with the legs far apart.
• noun The distance between the feet or legs of one who straddles.
• noun In speculative dealings on 'change, a “privilege” or speculative contract covering both a “put” and a “call”—that is, giving the holder the right at his option of calling, within a specified number of days, for a certain stock or commodity at a price named in the contract, or
• noun of delivering to the person to whom the consideration had been paid a certain stock or commodity upon terms similarly stated. See call, n., 15, privilege, n., 5, and put, n., 5. Also called spread eagle.
• noun In the game of poker, a doubling of the blind by one of the players.
• noun An attempt to take an equivocal or non-committal position: as, a straddle in a party platform.
• noun In mining, one of the vertical timbers by which the different sets are supported at a fixed distance from each other in the shaft; a vertical post used in various ways in timbering a mine, as in supporting the framework of a shaft at a hanging-on place.
• To stand or walk with the legs wide apart; sit or stand astride.
• To include or favor two apparently opposite or different things; occupy or take up an equivocal position in regard to something: as, to straddle on the tariff question.
• To place one leg on one side and the other on the other side of; stand or sit astride of: as, to straddle a fence or a horse.
• To occupy or take up an equivocal position in regard to; appear to favor both sides of: as, to straddle a political question.
• To double (the blind) in poker.
• noun A sort of tumble-bug; a scarabæid beetle with long legs, of the genus Canthon, as C. lævis. See cut under tumble-bug.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• transitive verb To place one leg on one side and the other on the other side of; to stand or sit astride of.
• noun The act of standing, sitting, or walking, with the feet far apart.
• noun The position, or the distance between the feet, of one who straddles; as, a wide straddle.
• noun Broker's Cant A stock option giving the holder the double privilege of a “put” and a “call,” i. e., securing to the buyer of the option the right either to demand of the seller at a certain price, within a certain time, certain securities, or to require him to take at the same price, and within the same time, the same securities.
• intransitive verb To part the legs wide; to stand or to walk with the legs far apart.
• intransitive verb To stand with the ends staggered; -- said of the spokes of a wagon wheel where they join the hub.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• verb To sit or stand with a leg on each side of something.
• verb To form a disorderly sprawl.
• verb military To fire successive artillery shots in front of and behind of a target, especially in order to determine its range.
• verb poker To place a voluntary raise prior to receiving cards (only by the first player after the blinds).
• noun a posture in which one straddles something
• noun finance an investment strategy involving trade in derivatives
• noun poker A voluntary raise made prior to receiving cards by the first player after the blinds.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun the option to buy or sell a given stock (or stock index or commodity future) at a given price before a given date; consists of an equal number of put and call options
• noun the act of sitting or standing astride
• verb be noncommittal
• noun a noncommittal or equivocal position
• verb range or extend over; occupy a certain area
• verb sit or stand astride of
• noun a gymnastic exercise performed with a leg on either side of the parallel bars