width

[ width, witthor, often, with ]

noun

1. extent from side to side; breadth; wideness.
2. a piece of the full wideness, as of cloth.

width

/ wɪdθ /

noun

1. the linear extent or measurement of something from side to side, usually being the shortest dimension or (for something fixed) the shortest horizontal dimension
2. the state or fact of being wide
3. a piece or section of something at its full extent from side to side

   a width of cloth

4. the distance across a rectangular swimming bath, as opposed to its length

Word History and Origins

Origin of width¹

1620–30; wide + -th ¹, modeled on breadth, etc.

Word History and Origins

Origin of width¹

C17: from wide + -th ¹, analogous to breadth

Example Sentences

Perovskite inks are deposited onto glass or plastic to make extremely thin films—around one hundredth of the width of a human hair—made up of metal, halide, and organic ions.

From Singularity Hub 

Yamagishi and his colleagues suggest that a colony twice that thick—roughly the width of a dime—could survive up to eight years in space.

From Popular-Science

About the size of a small TV at 21 inches in width, this dishwasher does the job by easily connecting to your kitchen faucet.

From Popular-Science

Much like long bone growth, pelvis width is driven largely by estrogen levels.

From Quanta Magazine

Tiny channels about the width of a human hair collect sweat.

From Science News For Students

Each side of the triangle will measure five miles in width, a foot in depth, and nearly 307 miles in length.

From The Daily Beast

Some of us fill it out more width-wise than length-wise, so I always get ring around the cock.

From The Daily Beast

Two thick palm trunks lie across its width and its concrete block walls have tumbled to the ground.

From The Daily Beast

The grander the occasion, the larger the width of the hoop petticoat.

From The Daily Beast

The width of the surrounding streets allows the Barclays Center to stand in relief as the alien presence it is.

From The Daily Beast

About three o'clock, as nearly as I could tell, we dipped into a wooded creek bottom some two hundred yards in width.

From Project Gutenberg

It was not until 1842 when part of the Royal Hotel stables were taken down, that it was made its present width.

From Project Gutenberg

Small veins, rarely exceeding half an inch in width, the fibres not easily separable.

From Project Gutenberg

The man on the girl's right seemed to overlap her possessively which could have been accounted for by the width of his shoulders.

From Project Gutenberg

She found herself in a large saloon, which took in the whole width of the stern of the dahabeeyah.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• diameter
• girth
• scope
• span
• thickness