Find the word definition

Crossword clues for widen

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
widen
verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a grin widens (=someone starts smiling even more)
▪ Marcus's amused grin widened.
a growing/widening gap
▪ There is a widening gap in the academic performance of boys and girls.
a road narrows/widens
▪ After a couple of miles, the road narrows.
broaden/widen your experience (=increase the amount of different experience you have)
▪ After six years with the bank, he went to work in New York to broaden his experience.
extend/broaden/widen a definition (=make it include more ideas)
▪ The new law has broadened the definition of terrorism.
sb’s eyes widen (=become more open because they are surprised)
▪ His eyes widened in shock.
the gap widens
▪ The gap is widening between the incomes of the rich and the less well-off.
widen the gap
▪ Technology has widened the gap between people with and without computer skills.
widen your circle (=make it include more people)
▪ In London she set about widening her circle.
widen/broaden the scope of sth
▪ The police are widening the scope of their investigation.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
still
▪ They widened still further as his eyes ran slowly over the visible curves of her body.
▪ It widened still further in the 1980s as sales of the Mirror fell.
■ NOUN
basis
▪ A widening basis typically means cash bonds are rising more than bond futures.
▪ The yield gap between the three-month bill and 30-year bond widened to 213 basis points from 212.
choice
▪ The Government said it would widen choice for viewers and listeners, safeguard quality programming and bring greater competition and efficiency.
▪ Know how to overspend it to widen your choices, but do not overspend recklessly.
▪ We have a range of initiatives which are designed to promote owner-occupation and to widen choice for tenants.
▪ They wanted education which offered some evidence of achievement, some possibility of widening their choices in life.
circle
▪ Then I widened my circle to boxing friends.
▪ Yet this delayed-action disease manifested itself in widening circles and in larger numbers of people.
▪ Political work further widened my circle of acquaintances in London, particularly in the Labour movement.
▪ His prescriptions sound modest: Cushion people against economic shocks, widen the circle of prosperity, reduce inequality.
▪ First he covered the area near the tree, then he extended his search, widening the circle.
deficit
▪ The current account deficit widened to 4. 1 billion marks from a revised 2. 9 million marks in September.
gap
▪ The more I try to explain, the more I feel the language gap widen, leaving me isolated and estranged.
▪ The strain this imposed became unbearable as the gap widened.
▪ The trade gap widened by 3. 4 percent to $ 10. 36 billion, the highest in seven months.
▪ Those costs have been passed on to the residents, so the gap has widened.
▪ But a return to a strictly enforced standard becomes more and more difficult as the gap between generations widens.
▪ Britain's trade gap widens Britain's trade gap almost doubled last month with the worst figures for almost a year.
▪ From then on, the gap progressively widened.
horizon
▪ For those who wished to widen their horizons there were educational influences outside the classroom.
▪ If you add keyboard skills, you could widen these horizons.
▪ As we move towards the end of the millennium the Association is increasingly widening its horizons.
▪ I really do see this age as a time to widen horizons.
market
▪ They want to widen the market.
▪ This widens markets and permits greater specialization in the use of both property and human resources.
range
▪ Many new varieties are currently being evaluated in order to widen the range of suitable varieties. requirements 1.
▪ Firstly, retail banks have widened the range of services offered to customers.
▪ The introduction and expansion of a devolved staff development budget means that schools will be widening their range of staff development contacts.
road
▪ The Company had to pay £4,600 toward road widening in Penge and Anerley.
▪ It was a driveway that narrowed at the road, then widened as gracefully as stemware.
▪ The road had been widened over the years.
▪ The hills begin to plane out into a high plateau, and the road widens.
▪ The road widening will uproot 46 oak trees and damage wildlife habitat.
scope
▪ Whilst being very happy in a secretarial role I would like to widen my scope.
▪ She had read the words, widen your scope, in a phrase book.
▪ The Law Society, which represents solicitors, welcomed the report, which would widen solicitors' scope for fee-earning.
▪ This raises the question whether these words widen the scope for challenge.
▪ Many authorities are widening the scope of discussion with general practitioners to develop appropriate means of local involvement.
smile
▪ His smile widened as many fond memories came flooding back.
trade
▪ Britain's trade gap widens Britain's trade gap almost doubled last month with the worst figures for almost a year.
▪ The trade gap widened by 3. 4 percent to $ 10. 36 billion, the highest in seven months.
■ VERB
continue
▪ Today, the gap between rich and poor continues to widen.
▪ The gap between rich and poor has continued to widen into the 1990s, according to a new think-tank study.
try
▪ The report will therefore try to widen the knowledge of the school's decision-makers.
▪ Tropicana will launch its own marketing blitz Monday, trying to widen its extensive lead in the ready-to-drink juice segment.
▪ Secretary of the Amateur Rowing Association from 1893 to 1901, he tried unsuccessfully to widen its narrow definition of an amateur.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ A lot of local residents are against council plans to widen the road.
▪ From Horton, the valley widens, becoming broader and more expansive.
▪ Later the tunnel was widened to accommodate larger vehicles.
▪ Maryland widened its lead to 14 points.
▪ The gap between the incomes of two-carer families and lone mothers with children has widened.
▪ The range of university courses available has widened tremendously in recent years.
▪ The road widened again when we came out of the tunnel.
▪ When are they going to widen the road?
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ But a return to a strictly enforced standard becomes more and more difficult as the gap between generations widens.
▪ Her eyes widened as though she were shocked at herself.
▪ In fact, many recent developments have served to widen the gap between North and South.
▪ The current account deficit widened to 4. 1 billion marks from a revised 2. 9 million marks in September.
▪ The new interest in growth is sure to widen that gap.
▪ They widened still further as his eyes ran slowly over the visible curves of her body.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Widen

Widen \Wid"en\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Widened; p. pr. & vb. n. Widening.] To make wide or wider; to extend in breadth; to increase the width of; as, to widen a field; to widen a breach; to widen a stocking.

Widen

Widen \Wid"en\, v. i. To grow wide or wider; to enlarge; to spread; to extend.

Arches widen, and long aisles extend.
--Pope.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
widen

c.1600 (transitive), from wide + -en (1). Intransitive sense from 1709. Related: Widened; widening.

Wiktionary
widen

vb. 1 (context intransitive English) To become wide or wider. 2 (context transitive English) To make wide or wider.

WordNet
widen
  1. v. become broader or wider or more extensive; "The road widened" [ant: narrow]

  2. make (clothes) larger; "Let out that dress--I gained a lot of weight" [syn: let out] [ant: take in]

  3. make wider; "widen the road"

  4. extend in scope or range or area; "The law was extended to all citizens"; "widen the range of applications"; "broaden your horizon"; "Extend your backyard" [syn: broaden, extend]

Wikipedia
Widen

Widen is a municipality in the district of Bremgarten in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland.

Usage examples of "widen".

Tim had always found himself especially attuned to the deserted charms of Candie Gardens in winter, enjoying the bare traceries of the trees and the widened harbour view, the few points of colour against the monochrome background - the red and pink of the camellias near the top gate, the hanging yellow bells of the winter-flowering abutilon with their red clappers, even the iridescence of the mallard drake circling the largest of the ponds with his speckled mate.

But as the breach between himself and Congress widened, as the bitterness between the partisans of the Executive and of the Legislative Departments grew more intense, the belief became general, that, as soon as Congress should adjourn, there would be a removal of all Federal officers throughout the Union who were not faithful to the principles, and did not respond to the exactions, of the Administration.

Past admonishments to Peggy to stop writing than had gone unheeded, widening the rift that already existed between brother and sister.

Tamarina was returning to Algor and diverted her to their own world, widening the wedge a little further.

Her eyes widened and she nodded in understanding, and I knew exactly what was going through her mind because I, Apropos, master of subtlety, had planted it there.

The captain widened his watery blue eyes at Beery, leaned far back in his swivel chair.

He strode back through the screen entrance into the middle section of the lifeship and caught a glimpse of Biset in a comer, staring at him with widened, white-encircled eyes as he went by.

NailBiter closed within a length, and Shadow was almost ready to blinker him and pull off, but then the gap widened slightly--NailBiter had seen the joke.

His rapacity, like the trunk of an elephant, with equal skill twists a fortune out of the Broadway widening, and picks up dishonest pennies in the Bowery.

But they came out in a widening throng, Elam and Dav, Ewin and Aram, Eward Candwin and Buel Dowtry, Hu and Tad the stablemen from the Winespring Inn, Ban and Tell and the Companions riding with that banner still.

In silent frustration, Artus had returned to the pit and crawled through the hole Byrt had so helpfully widened during the battle.

Its rotundity was first lost, it assumed the semblance of a featureless disk of pallid light, which swiftly widened till it obscured all else, then seemed to advance upon and envelope her bodily, so that she became spiritually a part of it, an atom of identity engulfed in a limpid world of glareless light, light that had had no rays and issued from no source but was circumambient and universal.

Steve Cowan detected the resolution draining from her voice, and he saw how her eyes widened with horror.

Sidewalks had widened, stretched by the muscular fingers of money, and the pour of office workers had curdled into a cyclonic multitude, well-dressed, cologned, and silently pouting because the limousines double-parked along each and every curb were not idling obediently for it.

After a few hundred yards of thick forest, containing many trees which were quite unknown to me, but which Summerlee, who was the botanist of the party, recognized as forms of conifera and of cycadaceous plants which have long passed away in the world below, we entered a region where the stream widened out and formed a considerable bog.