Widening

How to spell widening

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce widening

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does widening mean?

1. verbIn the process of making or becoming broader, larger in extent, or more inclusive.
2. nounThe act or result of making something broader, or a section that has been made wider.

Widening in a sentence

• verb

  The council is widening the high street to ease the traffic.

• noun

  The road widening project will close one lane for several weeks.

• verb

  The gap between the two teams kept widening as the season went on.

• noun

  Economists warned about the widening of the income gap.

Where does widening come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built on the native English adjective 'wide', which comes from the Old English 'wid', meaning 'broad' or 'spacious', a word shared with old Germanic relatives such as the Dutch 'wijd' and German 'weit'. English has long had a habit of turning adjectives into verbs by adding the suffix '-en', so 'wide' became 'widen', meaning 'to make or become broader', alongside parallel forms like 'harden', 'soften' and 'broaden'. Adding the '-ing' ending then produces 'widening', used both as the ongoing action of a verb and as a noun for the act or result of making something wider. The whole word is therefore home-grown rather than borrowed, which is why it follows the regular pattern with no awkward foreign spelling. The one small trap is the single 'n': the suffix is '-en' plus '-ing', so the consonant is not doubled despite the way it sounds.

How the word is built

• wide (broad)
• -en (verb-forming suffix: to make/become)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)