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# widen

«widen» in Mova's school dictionary: **to make it wider, like widening a road or a path** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

verb (widen, widens, widened, widening)

### meaning for a pupil

1) To widen something means to make it wider, like widening a road or a path. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/widen/#m1)

2) To widen means to become wider, as in «the river widens near the sea». [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/widen/#m2)

3) To widen can mean to make something bigger in range, as in «widen your vocabulary» or «widen the search». [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/widen/#m3)

4) If eyes widen, they open more because of surprise or fear. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/widen/#m4)

### sense in the lessons

In maths and DT, widening a shape changes its width, which changes its area. In geography, rivers widen as they get closer to the sea. In stories, «her eyes widened» shows surprise or fear. In everyday life, roads are widened to fit more cars. Phrases: «widen the gap», «widen the search», «eyes widened», «widen your horizons».

### examples

- They are widening the road outside our school. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/widen/#x1)
- The river widens as it reaches the sea. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/widen/#x2)
- His eyes widened when he saw the birthday cake. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/widen/#x3)
- Reading lots of books widens your vocabulary. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/widen/#x4)
- The police widened the search for the lost dog. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/widen/#x5)
- The gap between the two teams widened in the second half. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/widen/#x6)
- If we widen the rectangle, its area gets bigger. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/widen/#x7)
- And he touched the walls, and they widened out, and she saw the organ which was playing; she saw the old pictures of the preachers and the preachers' wives. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/widen/#x8)

### note

Regular verb: widened, widening. «Widen» comes from «wide» + «-en», like «shorten», «brighten». Opposite: narrow. In maths, widening a rectangle while keeping its length increases the area.

### In the corpora

- [The Atlantic Ocean is a young ocean that started opening about 180 million years ago and is still widening.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/43-moving-continents-from-pangaea-to-today/11/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «widen» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/W/widen/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.