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.
A major evolutionary puzzle is why maternal age effects remain so widespread.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 19, 2026
The proposed merger has been controversial in Hollywood due to fears of widespread layoffs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026
Among the company’s biggest customers was Enron, the energy company that infamously filed for bankruptcy in 2001 after widespread internal fraud was uncovered.
From Salon ● Aug. 19, 2026
Gee made a similar move to enforce the settlement in response to the president’s controversial first-term family separation policy and widespread public outcry over the treatment of children in immigration detention.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026
In fact, the use of these traditional rules for Western music is now so widespread that it is sometimes called common practice.
From "Understanding Basic Music Theory" by Catherine Schmidt-Jones and Russel Jones
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.
