WIDENING

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does widening mean? 

• WIDENING (noun)
  The noun WIDENING has 3 senses:

1. an increase in width

2. a part of a road that has been widened to allow cars to pass or park

3. the act of making something wider

  Familiarity information: WIDENING used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WIDENING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An increase in width

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural processes

Synonyms:

broadening; widening

Hypernyms ("widening" is a kind of...):

growth; increase; increment (a process of becoming larger or longer or more numerous or more important)

Antonym:

narrowing (a decrease in width)

Derivation:

widen (become broader or wider or more extensive)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A part of a road that has been widened to allow cars to pass or park

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

turnout; widening

Hypernyms ("widening" is a kind of...):

part; portion (something less than the whole of a human artifact)

Holonyms ("widening" is a part of...):

road; route (an open way (generally public) for travel or transportation)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The act of making something wider

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

broadening; widening

Hypernyms ("widening" is a kind of...):

change of shape (an action that changes the shape of something)

Antonym:

narrowing (the act of making something narrower)

Derivation:

widen (make wider)

 Context examples 

Disopyramide prolongs the QT interval and causes a widening of the QRS complex.

(Disopyramide Phosphate, NCI Thesaurus)

Localized widening of the lumen of the mammary ducts.

(Focal Mammary Duct Ectasia, NCI Thesaurus)

Obvious extension of glands, nests or single cells extensively into stroma, including with apparent widening of the stroma (eosinophilic collagenous tissue), potentially reflecting desmoplasia, or into periprostatic fat

(Invasive Carcinoma of the Mouse Prostate Gland, NCI Thesaurus/MMHCC)

The widening of the chambers of the heart between two contractions when the chambers fill with blood.

(Diastole, NCI Thesaurus)

Your autonomic nervous system is the part of your nervous system that controls involuntary actions, such as the beating of your heart and the widening or narrowing of your blood vessels.

(Autonomic Nervous System Disorders, NIH: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke)

And so the circle goes on ever widening, like as the ripples from a stone thrown in the water.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

At the same time the Genoese sailors thrust with their oars against the side of the cog, and a rapidly widening rift appeared between the two vessels.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Bronchodilation involves widening of air passage lumina, typically due to bronchial smooth muscle relaxation, and leads to increased air flow.

(Bronchodilation, NCI Thesaurus)

The period of greatest risk to orbiting spacecraft will start about 90 minutes later and last about 20 minutes, when Mars will come closest to the center of the widening dust trail from the nucleus.

(Mars spacecraft prepare for close comet flyby, NASA)

This tropical widening process is slow, however, expanding only 0.5 to 1 degree in latitude every 10 years.

(Greenhouse Gas ‘Detergent’ Recycles Itself in Atmosphere, NASA)