expanse
Americannoun
-
expanses
plural
noun
-
an uninterrupted surface of something that spreads or extends, esp over a wide area; stretch
an expanse of water
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expansion or extension
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of expanse
1660–70; < New Latin expānsum, noun use of neuter of Latin expānsus, past participle of expandere to expand
Explanation
An expanse is a huge area you can look at all at once. If you climb to the top of a mountain, suggest that your fellow climbers take time to admire the expanse of trees below. Expanse looks like the word expand. Both come from the Latin word expandere, meaning "to spread out, unfold." But where did expandere come from? Ex- means "out" and pandere means "spread or stretch." So an expanse is something that seems to unfold before your eyes, or to put it another way, something that stretches out as far as the eye can see.
Vocabulary lists containing expanse
The Giver
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The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
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Mr. Popper’s Penguins
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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:
The plan would see India send several of its more than 3,600 tigers to southwest Cambodia's Cardamom Mountains, a protected expanse of lush rainforest stretching over a million hectares.
From Barron's ● Jul. 8, 2026
Julia Dawber's home overlooks an expanse of scenic coastline, and she says as many as nine campervans can park up near the shore at any one time.
From BBC ● Jun. 28, 2026
Signs on either side warn — ominously, given the unforgiving expanse ahead — that once you’ve left, the nearest gas station is not for another 100 miles or so.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 14, 2026
Befitting the brothers’ upbringing, the group’s music has tended to have a bucolic air, suggesting rolling hills and dark forests rather than the urban expanse more common to its genre.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 26, 2026
He could close his eyes and picture the vast expanse of the desk, almost completely empty.
From "Found" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
"What makes this pattern so fascinating is that evolution keeps arriving at similar cooperative solutions in very different groups and across vast expanses of time," says Dorus.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 6, 2026
But its endless expanses have been swept by panic since an outbreak of highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease, which was declared a national disaster in February.
From Barron's ● Mar. 13, 2026
New Yorkers take part in a snowball fight in Brooklyn's McCarren Park, as a major winter storm sweeps through vast expanses of the United States.
From Barron's ● Jan. 26, 2026
Photos shared by the agency on social media showed the snow-lined highway littered with boulders and debris and expanses of it buckled and broken.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 31, 2025
Now, along the lonely expanses of wiry turf, the air wavered.
From "Watership Down: A Novel" by Richard Adams
Definitions 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.
