Worldwide
adjectiveExtending throughout or affecting the whole world.
How to spell worldwide
9 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce worldwide
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does worldwide mean?
- adjectiveExtending throughout or affecting the whole world.
- adverbThroughout the whole world; everywhere on earth.
Worldwide in a sentence
-
adjective
The company built a worldwide network of suppliers.
-
adverb
The software is now used worldwide by millions of people.
-
adjective
The pandemic caused worldwide disruption to travel.
-
adverb
The charity operates worldwide to provide clean water.
Where does worldwide come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
This is a native English compound built from two old Germanic words. 'World' descends from Old English 'weorold', a fusion of 'wer' meaning 'man' and a root tied to 'eld', age, so it literally suggested 'the age or life of human beings' before it came to mean the earth and all its peoples. 'Wide' comes from Old English 'wid', meaning broad or extending far, the same root behind modern 'widen' and 'width'. The two were joined in the modern period, with the adjectival and adverbial sense 'extending throughout the whole world' becoming common in the nineteenth century. The spelling trap is simply the join: there is no space and no hyphen, and the 'd' of 'world' sits directly against the 'w' of 'wide'.
How the word is built
- world (the earth, all nations)
- wide (extending over a large area)
Fix your spelling for good.
Spelling Garden finds the words you personally get wrong, plants them in a garden, and brings each one back just before you would have forgotten it.
Just five minutes a day is all it takes to fix your spelling.