broad
adjective
of great breadth.
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broad
1 American
[brawd]
/ brɔd /
adjective
-
broader,
comparative
-
broadest
superlative
-
of great breadth.
The river was too broad to swim across.
- Antonyms:
- narrow
-
measured from side to side.
The desk was three feet broad.
-
of great extent; large.
the broad expanse of ocean.
-
We awoke to broad daylight.
-
not limited or narrow; of extensive range or scope.
A modern doctor must have a broad knowledge of medicine.
-
A broad interpretation of the law tempers justice with mercy.
-
main or general.
the broad outlines of a subject.
-
plain or clear.
Her remark was a broad hint of her feelings.
-
He smirked at the broad joke.
- Synonyms:
- gross
-
(of conversation) rough; countrified.
-
unconfined; unbridled; unrestrained;
It was a hilarious evening of broad mirth.
-
(of pronunciation) strongly dialectal.
He wore kilts and had a broad Scots accent.
-
Phonetics. (of a transcription) using one basic symbol to represent each phoneme.
-
broad a, the a- sound when used in lieu of the more common a- sound in such words as half, can't, and laugh.
adverb
noun
-
broads
plural
-
the broad part of anything.
-
Slang.
-
Usually Offensive. a term used to refer to a woman.
-
a promiscuous woman.
-
-
Movies, Television. Often broads. an incandescent or fluorescent lamp used as a general source of light in a studio.
-
a gold coin of England and Scotland, issued by James I and Charles I and equal to 20 shillings.
idioms
-
broad on the quarter, bearing 135° to the heading of a vessel.
-
broad on the bow, bearing 45° to the heading of a vessel.
-
broad on the beam, bearing 90° to the heading of a vessel.
Broad
2
American
[brawd]
/ brɔd /
noun
broad
British
/ brɔːd /
adjective
-
having relatively great breadth or width
-
of vast extent; spacious
a broad plain
-
(postpositive) from one side to the other
four miles broad
-
of great scope or potential
that invention had broad applications
-
not detailed; general
broad plans
-
clear and open; full (esp in the phrase broad daylight )
-
obvious or plain
broad hints
-
liberal; tolerant
a broad political stance
-
widely spread; extensive
broad support
-
outspoken or bold
a broad manner
-
vulgar; coarse; indecent
a broad joke
-
unrestrained; free
broad laughter
-
(of a dialect or pronunciation) consisting of a large number of speech sounds characteristic of a particular geographical area
a broad Yorkshire accent
-
finance denoting an assessment of liquidity as including notes and coin in circulation with the public, banks' till money and balances, most private-sector bank deposits, and sterling bank-deposit certificates Compare narrow
broad money
-
phonetics
-
of or relating to a type of pronunciation transcription in which symbols correspond approximately to phonemes without taking account of allophonic variations
-
the long vowel in English words such as father , half , as represented in the received pronunciation of Southern British English
-
-
amounting to the same thing; without advantage either way
noun
-
the broad part of something
-
slang
-
a girl or woman
-
a prostitute
-
-
dialect a river spreading over a lowland See also Broads
-
dialect a shallow lake
-
a wood-turning tool used for shaping the insides and bottoms of cylinders
adverb
broad
More Idioms
Sensitivity
When used to refer to a woman, broad is usually perceived as insulting. The meaning “promiscuous woman” is probably the earlier sense.
Synonym Usage
See wide.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of broad
First recorded before 1000; Middle English bro(a)d, Old English brād; cognate with Dutch breed, German breit, Old Norse breithr, Gothic braiths
Explanation
The adjective broad boasts an extensive — you might even say broad — array of subtly different meanings including wide, spacious, far-reaching, vague, and unsubtle. It's kind of funny that the word broad can communicate such an expansive range of ideas since expansive is, in fact, a synonym for broad. This adjective can be used to describe actual physical spaces. A broad highway, for example, would be difficult to cross because of all the cars in the many lanes of the road. The word can also be used more figuratively. American history covers a broad range of topics and events. A broad-minded person is open to new ideas, while broad humor aims for a mass audience with obvious gags and stunts.
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“It turns out AI is broad but not that deep. Until it can do the entirety of someone’s job, it’s hard to plug it in to totally replace a worker,” Deming said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 7, 2026
First, Burnham inherited the broad deal that's likely to be signed.
From BBC ● Nov. 7, 2026
Allow your eyes roughly 30 minutes to become accustomed to the darkness, then watch a broad section of the sky rather than concentrating on one small area.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 6, 2026
And party leaders in Washington were nodding to 2028 as they outlined broad plans for their House and Senate majorities.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 6, 2026
In one swift motion, Mr. Beaver smacked his broad tail against the water.
From "The Wild Robot Protects" by Peter Brown
"Broad abilities such as comprehension-knowledge and auditory processing played strong, specific roles in reading beyond general intelligence, especially for decoding and comprehension."
From Science Daily ● Nov. 3, 2026
Before founders Eli and Edythe Broad built their museum, which opened in 2015, the collection operated as a lending library for art.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 20, 2026
The next most successful bowling four-pronged attack is James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Ben Stokes and Moeen Ali, who took 415 wickets in their 31 Tests together for England.
From BBC ● Oct. 11, 2026
The River Arts District, a string of old warehouses along the French Broad River that artists turned into studios and galleries over decades, took some of the worst of the flooding.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 26, 2026
The girls were staying in a house south of Broad Street in the muted, elegant old section of the city.
From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy
“Us old broads are trying to learn the new technology because, I mean, we’re kind of trapped,” said Linda Harner, whom I met at the Culver City Senior Center, where she takes a Spanish class.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 3, 2022
Hemsby lifeboat service used its flat-bottomed vessel, used to navigate shallow waters of the Norfolk broads, to carry out a rescue of six people.
From BBC ● Apr. 24, 2022
This is a workout for ladies, by which she means older broads who might appreciate the occasional low-impact leg lifts.
From The New Yorker ● Apr. 9, 2019
“I think they just bonded over overcoming their experiences, and being great broads, and being tremendous mothers,” she explained.
From Fox News ● Nov. 30, 2018
In England the sport of coot-shooting is pursued to some extent on the broads and back-waters of the eastern counties—in Southampton Water and Christchurch Bay—and is often conducted battue-fashion by a number of guns.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 3 "Convention" to "Copyright" by Various
Dr. Jennifer Rood, Interim Senior Vice Chancellor and Executive Director of Pennington Biomedical, emphasized the importance of connecting laboratory discoveries with research involving patients and broader populations.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 9, 2026
Barley and sorghum prices followed the broader grain market lower.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 6, 2026
The broader implication is that a food's health effects cannot always be predicted by examining a single ingredient.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 6, 2026
The Aristocrats cannot be expected to outperform the S&P 500 over longer periods, as the broader index is heavily weighted to very large companies that are growing rapidly.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 6, 2026
If we could understand the reasons for the disparate development of those two island societies, we might have a model for understanding the broader question of differing developments on the continents.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
Published in the journal Scientific Reports, the research offers one of the broadest examinations yet of the brain changes associated with different sleep disorders.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 8, 2026
The average cost of a family health plan this year, up by 5%, according to an annual survey from the nonprofit KFF, which provides the broadest picture of U.S. employer health coverage.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 22, 2026
But if you move even slightly away from the broadest indexes like the S&P 500 or the aggregate U.S. bond market, ETFs often cost more than they should.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026
“The broadest metric I look at is the Bloomberg Municipal Bond Index ,” Nuveen’s Close said.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 10, 2026
One of them, a very short older man with the squarest, broadest face of orange-brown I’d ever seen, said something to them and they all began leaving.
From "Native Speaker" by Chang-rae Lee
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