the.com/sprawl

means To spread out loosely and shapelessly over a wide area, whether it's a body sprawled on a couch or a town sprawled across a valley.

from From Old English 'spreawlian,' meaning to move the limbs convulsively or thrash about — the image is of someone flailing or splayed out awkwardly. The sense drifted from a single body's ungainly sprawl to anything spreading out in that same loose, limb-flung way, and by the 20th century it had settled onto cities and suburbs spreading without plan or restraint.