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.
Becerra recalled that during his 24 years in Congress there was widespread, bipartisan support for sending federal assistance to disaster areas, including areas devastated by hurricanes on the Eastern Seaboard or floods in the South.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2026
In recent years, a stream of DNA exonerations has shown how widespread false confessions really are.
From Slate ● Sep. 17, 2026
Rupar wrote on both X and Bluesky on Saturday, over a Getty image of Natalie Harp, a Trump aide who has drawn widespread attention for her unsettling sycophancy.
From Salon ● Sep. 16, 2026
"We take a firm line on ads that are likely to cause serious or widespread offence and these ads are a clear example of why that matters," she said.
From BBC ● Sep. 15, 2026
The other two are nouns as well as adjectives: epidemic refers to something widespread in a particular community or population, and pandemic to something that has spread to an entire country, continent, or beyond.
From "Woe Is I" by Patricia T. O'Conner
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.
