nationwide
Americanadjective
adjective
Etymology
Origin of nationwide
Explanation
Something nationwide refers to or covers the whole country. A nationwide shortage of wheat would affect everyone in every single state. A gossipy news story about a presidential candidate might cause a nationwide scandal, if everyone in the whole country were talking about it. And if a drought seemed to be spreading nationwide, farmers from Maine to California would start to worry about that year's crops. Nationwide combines nation, from the Latin nationem, "origin" or "race of people," and wide, from its "extending through the whole of" meaning.
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.
Before 2021, poison control centers nationwide typically handled between 1,000 and 1,500 GLP-1RA related cases each year.
From Science Daily • Jul. 9, 2026
Cubans in several locations on the island banged pots on Tuesday evening to express their anger about the latest nationwide power cut.
From BBC • Jul. 8, 2026
Her daughter, Caitlin, tells Aviv the story — evidence of the tragic fallout of deinstitutionalization, “a nationwide social experiment that did not go as planned.”
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 8, 2026
A project called “Last Seen: Finding Families After Slavery” has compiled thousand of ads taken out in hundreds of newspapers nationwide between the 1830s and 1920s by former slaves searching for loved ones.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jul. 7, 2026
The nationwide boycott lasted only one day, and it was largely ignored by customers who pushed their way past the guards.
From "Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow" by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
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.
