adjective
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extending over a wide area
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accepted by or occurring among many people
Etymology
Origin of widespread
Explanation
Widespread means far-reaching. For years, email was used only by computer programmers and technophiles. It was hard to imagine, back then, how widespread the phenomenon of digital communication would become. An idea that's widespread, is believed by many people, even if it's not true. A person such as Oprah, Gandhi, or Beyoncé, who has widespread popularity, is loved by many far and wide. A widespread disease is one that many people have — the flu epidemic of 1919 was deadly and widespread.
Vocabulary lists containing widespread
"The Civil Rights Movement"
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100 SAT words Beginning with W,X,Y, and Z
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"Laws are not the only way to boost immunization”: an editorial from Nature
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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.
Despite widespread efforts to encourage people to limit salt, average sodium consumption continues to exceed recommended levels.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 2, 2026
Even so, discontent over the economy appears widespread.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 1, 2026
Ever since the probe was announced, the committee has sought to allay concerns over it, with the body's acting director insisting the same day that any suggestion of widespread issues was "entirely groundless".
From Barron's ● Nov. 1, 2026
Facing the collapse of his government amid anti-democratic crackdowns and widespread labor unrest, Cuban President Gerardo Machado hightailed it to Florida in 1933.
From Salon ● Nov. 1, 2026
Then as now, pseudoscientific beliefs were not limited to the uneducated, and the belief that various psychological and mental attributes were discernible by examining the bumps and contours of one’s head was widespread.
From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
