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expanse
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
expanse
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a stretch/expanse of desert (=a very large area of desert)
▪ In front of us was nothing but a vast expanse of desert.
vast areas/expanses/tracts etc (of sth)
▪ vast areas of rainforest
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
flat
▪ He accelerated up a dark and steep hill and finally they emerged on to the flat expanse of Blackheath.
great
▪ He crossed from the garage loft to the great expanse of his brick-built house.
▪ The road to that decision point is a long one, traversing great expanses of science, technology, and economics.
▪ To the North there are great expanses of beaches.
▪ Music blares out from the theatre across the great expanse.
▪ Beyond this channel the great main expanse of the lake towards the east opens out.
▪ As a prairie youth I loved Vancouver and the great expanse of open sea, and hoped to live there some day.
▪ The terrain is very varied from the great expanse of Dartmoor to the gentler stretch of Exmoor.
huge
▪ But it was nothing compared to the strain of walking out on to that huge expanse of stage and facing the crowd.
▪ Window problem: The huge expanse of windows on Darlington's new Cornmill Centre has presented window cleaners with a headache.
▪ Bank upon bank of thrift and proud long-stemmed daisies intermingled with huge expanses of gorse and foxgloves.
▪ There was something about this huge expanse of rugged land that changed his sense of time.
▪ For the Great Fen that once covered the huge expanse of 2,500 square miles has shrunk to a tiny fraction.
▪ In summer it is a huge expanse of grain-growing land.
large
▪ The walk southwards brings you to Widemouth Bay, a large expanse of golden sands.
▪ The rest was given over to a bowling green and a large expanse of lawn; the potential for change was enormous.
▪ West of the atrium is a large expanse of water popularly known as the port of Milan.
▪ He seldom hunts in Gloucestershire because he finds the large expanses of flat and open farmland boring.
▪ Alternatively it can be balanced by the large expanse of blank, negative mount, which will assert its texture.
▪ The far wall was a large expanse of ornamented glass, with pitch blackness beyond.
▪ Derelict land often forms the only large expanse of land that is not well-manicured and possessed by peak-capped officials.
▪ This will give the curtains a larger expanse and create a striking splash of colour.
vast
▪ He had not been here before and he was alarmed by the vast expanse of water that now stretched ahead of him.
▪ The way paintings were hung, how sculpture and furniture were placed across the vast expanse, suggested landscape rather than decor.
▪ Yet the whole was harmonious, welded together beneath the vast expanse of Virginia creeper which covered the walls to the eaves.
▪ My mind is a blank, a vast, puffy expanse of nothingness.
▪ Layers of colour, white, reds and vast expanses of different tones of green.
▪ Sand-covered wooden steps hug a large man-made sand dune buffer, delivering us on to a vast expanse of pale beach.
▪ The vast expanse of Exmoor national park starts at Combe Martin.
▪ For example, Clarke scorns those who argue that mankind will not eventually move out to colonise the vast expanses of space.
wide
▪ There had been such a wide expanse of firm ground that a trench had never been worn.
▪ When operated in wide expanses of water, away from other people, jet skis pose no hazard.
▪ If she goes forward now she will be visible; the wide expanse of grass leads to stone steps with a balustrade.
▪ Then it happens again and Pip is left in the wide expanse of the ocean.
▪ They were spread over a wide expanse of riverbank, back at the twisting curling Shannon river once more.
▪ Young Pip is destroyed when he is left totally isolated upon the wide expanses of the sea.
▪ Across a wide expanse of mahogany sat a man in his fifties.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ We traveled across a broad expanse of desert.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A man climbed to the top and gazed helplessly at the curved expanse of the copper-sheathed dome.
▪ Across the rooftops, a lone cop prowler was the only thing moving on the cold expanse of the Grand Canal.
▪ He had not been here before and he was alarmed by the vast expanse of water that now stretched ahead of him.
▪ If we live on continents, we tend to see the world as land inconveniently dissected by expanses of water.
▪ Sand-covered wooden steps hug a large man-made sand dune buffer, delivering us on to a vast expanse of pale beach.
▪ The Pequod moves softly through the blue expanse.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Expanse

Expanse \Ex*panse"\, n. [From L. expansus, p. p. of expandere. See Expand.] That which is expanded or spread out; a wide extent of space or body; especially, the arch of the sky. ``The green expanse.''
--Savage.

Lights . . . high in the expanse of heaven.
--Milton.

The smooth expanse of crystal lakes.
--Pope.

Expanse

Expanse \Ex*panse"\, v. t. To expand. [Obs.]

That lies expansed unto the eyes of all.
--Sir. T. Browne.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
expanse

1660s, from Latin expansum, noun use of neuter of expansus, past participle of expandere "to spread out" (see expand).

Wiktionary
expanse

n. 1 A wide stretch, usually of sea, sky, or land. 2 An amount of spread or stretch.

WordNet
expanse

  1. n. a wide scope; "the sweep of the plains" [syn: sweep]

  2. the extent of a 2-dimensional surface enclosed within a boundary; "the area of a rectangle"; "it was about 500 square feet in area" [syn: area, surface area]

  3. a wide and open space or area as of surface or land or sky

Wikipedia
Expanse

Expanse or The Expanse may refer to:

  • Expanse, Saskatchewan, an unincorporated area in south central Saskatchewan, Canada
  • in the Star Trek science fiction franchise:
    • "The Expanse" (Star Trek episode), the 26th episode of the second season of the TV series Star Trek: Enterprise
    • The Expanse (Star Trek novel), the novelization of the episode
    • The Expanse (Star Trek location) or the Delphic Expanse, a region of space in the Star Trek universe
  • in the The Expanse science fiction setting:
    • The Expanse (novel series), a series of science fiction novels by James S. A. Corey
    • The Expanse (TV series), a television adaptation of the novel series

Usage examples of "expanse".

Jessy agreed absently while her gaze took in the broad expanse of plains before them, rugged and rolling into forever.

The whole middle expanse of Asia was not academically conquered for Orientalism until, during the later eighteenth century, Anquetil-Duperron and Sir William Jones were able intelligibly to reveal the extraordinary riches of Avestan and Sanskrit.

Somewhere beyond the ability of my vision to scry lay the Straits of Alba, that wind-whipped expanse of water as grey and narrow and deadly as a blade, separating Ysandre from a dream.

The carriage turned onto a cross street and they passed an open gate, Alec glimpsed an expanse of open ground and beyond it a sprawling edifice of pale grey stone decorated along the battlements with patterns of black and white.

She hugged her knees and looked out over the expanse of sand that lapped against the yellow stone aqueduct like a tan and frozen sea.

I may be believed when I assert that Desolation Islands is the only suitable name for this group of three hundred isles or islets in the midst of the vast expanse of ocean, which is constantly disturbed by austral storms.

Raising herself to her knees, she gazed down across the vast expanses of empty gray air to a rapidly flattening field with a tiny town on one side of it and a thin gray yarn, the fog-shrouded Blabbermouth, running through it.

Nemes, Scylla, and Briareus regard the Shrike across the expanse of the suspension bridge, not phase-shifting for a moment, appreciating the realtime view of their enemy.

Maia and Brod ducked again, having caught sight of an expanse of floating bits and flinders, logs and loosely tethered boxes, along with one drifting, grotesquely ruined body.

Crossing over the river Brue by a good stone bridge, we at last reached the small country town for which we had been making, which lies embowered in the midst of a broad expanse of fertile meadows, orchards, and sheep-walks.

Cliffs, looking down at the muddy red lowland below, the yellowish expanse of the Occoquan River beyond, finally the bushily overgrown, rocky start of Fairfax County beyond that.

The next time you see a tree waving in the wind, recollect that it is the tail of a great underground, many-armed, polypus-like creature, which is as proud of its caudal appendage, especially in summer-time, as a peacock of his gorgeous expanse of plumage.

King John of France was proving such an ache In English prisons wide and fair and grand, Whose long expanses of green park and chace Did ape large liberty with such success As smiles of irony ape smiles of love.

Disneyesque in their cuteness and whiskers Gus-Gus would have been proud of poked her nose out of the kitchen and contemplated crossing the risky expanse of carpet in the living area.

It was badly delapidated so that in places we could easily look down into the park as it sloped towards the bottom of the valley where we saw a line of thick bushes and trees marking the course of a hidden stream until it broadened out into an expanse of grey water which was the lake.