This is something pretty much everyone has done. The act of throwing but also holding onto a sheet or blanket or beach towel to spread it out in the air so that you can lay it flat on the bed, ground, or whatever surface.
I don't think there is a word for this. Whenever I've asked this question people just zone out with a blank expression on their face.
words like open, unfold, unfurl, throw, blanket just don't seem enough.
In my mind, the word spread comes closest, but I feel it still isn't quite right.
Learn English – Word request for the action of throwing the sheets over a bed
single-word-requests
Related Solutions
Bibliophiles have their own jargon for the various ways a book can be damaged— foxed, warped, a whole slew of c- words from to chipped to cockled to crimped; see ILAB glossary for a few. The technical term for a book that has lost its binding is disbound, which Merriam-Webster defines as simply
no longer having a binding (a disbound pamphlet)
But there isn't, so far as I know, an English idiom that refers to a book becoming disbound due to overuse. For whatever reason, the English noticed wear and tear on the pages of the book rather than its spine, and so a book that is worn out from overuse is very often described as tattered and/or dog-eared, and perhaps frayed (especially of cloth bookcovers). Per MW again:
tattered - 2: torn into shreds: ragged (a tattered flag)
3a: broken down : dilapidated (decaying houses along tattered paved streets — P. B. Martin)
b: being in a shattered condition (led their tattered party to victory)dog-eared - 1: having dog-ears (a dog–eared book)
2: shabby, timeworn (a dog–eared resort dog–eared myths)
(a dog-ear is a folded-down corner of a page, used to hold a place)
3 fray (intransitive) - 1: to wear out or into shreds
2: to show signs of strain
Saga is sometimes used for long-span, involved narratives. It might connote old northern epics but I've remembered it now in connection with The Forsyte Saga (which tells a story of a large family through several generations in late 19th/early 20th century, London).
Also, looking up this word might bring in more suggestions.
Best Answer
Spread is the most suitable word.
The Ngram Viewer doesn't find anything for unfurl or unfold a blanket, but it has many hits for spread a blanket.
By the way, the word bedspread is synonymous to blanket, which shows the suitability of the verb "spread" to talk about spreading a blanket.