widen

1. (intransitive) To become wide or wider.Examples: "His eyes widened as her negligee fell to the floor."intransitive

2. (transitive) To make wide or wider.Examples: "But he still saw his side produce a rousing display which owed much to their lauded prowess from set-pieces, despite Uefa regulations meaning the pitch had to be widened and, in the process, the run-up area for Delap's long throws reduced."transitive

3. (transitive) To let out clothes to a larger size.Examples: "She widened his trousers for him."transitive

4. (transitive) To broaden or extend in scope or range.Examples: "The police widened their enquiries."; "While the primary focus of the Sexual Orientation Committee had been to lobby for gay rights legislation, the new Task Force hopes to widen its activities. The Task Force ― in addition to lobbying — hopes to function as an "umbrella organization," facilitating communication between the state's many gay groups."; "Correspondent Gerardo Arreola interviewed Castro Espín for the Jan. 9, 2006, issue of La Jornada about the move to widen rights for transsexuals."transitive

5. (transitive, programming) To convert to a data type that can hold a larger number of distinct values.Examples: "to widen a short variable to an int variable"Antonyms: narrowtransitive