AskDefine | Define wide

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The Collaborative Dictionary

Wide \Wide\ (w[imac]d), a. [Compar. Wider (-[~e]r); superl. Widest.] [OE. wid, wyde, AS. w[imac]d; akin to OFries. & OS. w[imac]d, D. wijd, G. weit, OHG. w[imac]t, Icel. v[imac][eth]r, Sw. & Dan. vid; of uncertain origin.]
Having considerable distance or extent between the sides; spacious across; much extended in a direction at right angles to that of length; not narrow; broad; as, wide cloth; a wide table; a wide highway; a wide bed; a wide hall or entry. [1913 Webster] The chambers and the stables weren wyde. --Chaucer. [1913 Webster] Wide is the gate . . . that leadeth to destruction. --Matt. vii.
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Having a great extent every way; extended; spacious; broad; vast; extensive; as, a wide plain; the wide ocean; a wide difference. "This wyde world." --Chaucer. [1913 Webster] For sceptered cynics earth were far too wide a den. --Byron. [1913 Webster] When the wide bloom, on earth that lies, Seems of a brighter world than ours. --Bryant. [1913 Webster]
Of large scope; comprehensive; liberal; broad; as, wide views; a wide understanding. [1913 Webster] Men of strongest head and widest culture. --M. Arnold. [1913 Webster]
Of a certain measure between the sides; measuring in a direction at right angles to that of length; as, a table three feet wide. [1913 Webster]
Remote; distant; far. [1913 Webster] The contrary being so wide from the truth of Scripture and the attributes of God. --Hammond. [1913 Webster]
Far from truth, from propriety, from necessity, or the like. "Our wide expositors." --Milton. [1913 Webster] It is far wide that the people have such judgments. --Latimer. [1913 Webster] How wide is all this long pretense ! --Herbert. [1913 Webster]
On one side or the other of the mark; too far side-wise from the mark, the wicket, the batsman, etc. [1913 Webster] Surely he shoots wide on the bow hand. --Spenser. [1913 Webster] I was but two bows wide. --Massinger. [1913 Webster]
(Phon.) Made, as a vowel, with a less tense, and more open and relaxed, condition of the mouth organs; -- opposed to primary as used by Mr. Bell, and to narrow as used by Mr. Sweet. The effect, as explained by Mr. Bell, is due to the relaxation or tension of the pharynx; as explained by Mr. Sweet and others, it is due to the action of the tongue. The wide of [=e] ([=e]ve) is [i^] ([i^]ll); of [=a] ([=a]te) is [e^] ([e^]nd), etc. See Guide to Pronunciation, [sect] 13-15. [1913 Webster]
(Stock Exchanges) Having or showing a wide difference between the highest and lowest price, amount of supply, etc.; as, a wide opening; wide prices, where the prices bid and asked differ by several points. [Webster 1913 Suppl.] Note: Wide is often prefixed to words, esp. to participles and participial adjectives, to form self-explaining compounds; as, wide-beaming, wide-branched, wide-chopped, wide-echoing, wide-extended, wide-mouthed, wide-spread, wide-spreading, and the like. [1913 Webster] Far and wide. See under Far. Wide gauge. See the Note under Cauge,
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Wide \Wide\, adv. [As. w[imac]de.]
To a distance; far; widely; to a great distance or extent; as, his fame was spread wide. [1913 Webster] [I] went wyde in this world, wonders to hear. --Piers Plowman. [1913 Webster]
So as to leave or have a great space between the sides; so as to form a large opening. --Shak. [1913 Webster]
So as to be or strike far from, or on one side of, an object or purpose; aside; astray. [1913 Webster]
Wide \Wide\, n.
That which is wide; wide space; width; extent. "The waste wide of that abyss." --Tennyson. [1913 Webster]
That which goes wide, or to one side of the mark. [1913 Webster]

Word Net

wide adj
1 having great (or a certain) extent from one side to the other; "wide roads"; "a wide necktie"; "wide margins"; "three feet wide"; "a river two miles broad"; "broad shoulders"; "a broad river" [syn: broad] [ant: narrow]
2 broad in scope or content; "across-the-board pay increases"; "an all-embracing definition"; "blanket sanctions against human-rights violators"; "an invention with broad applications"; "a panoptic study of Soviet nationality"- T.G.Winner; "granted him wide powers" [syn: across-the-board, all-embracing, all-encompassing, all-inclusive, blanket(a), broad, encompassing, panoptic]
3 (used of eyes) fully open or extended; "listened in round-eyed wonder"; "stared with wide eyes" [syn: round-eyed, wide-eyed]
4 very large in expanse or scope; "a broad lawn"; "the wide plains"; "a spacious view"; "spacious skies" [syn: broad, spacious]
5 great in degree; "won by a wide margin" [ant: narrow]
6 great in range or scope; "an extended vocabulary"; "surgeons with extended experience"; "extensive examples of picture writing"; "suffered extensive damage"; "a wide selection" [syn: extended, extensive]
7 having ample fabric; "the current taste for wide trousers"; "a full skirt" [syn: wide-cut, full]
8 not on target; "the kick was wide"; "the arrow was wide of the mark"; "a claim that was wide of the truth" [syn: wide of the mark] adv
1 with or by a broad space; "stand with legs wide apart"; "ran wide around left end"
2 to the fullest extent possible; "open your eyes wide"; "with the throttle wide open"
3 far from the intended target; "the arrow went wide of the mark"; "a bullet went astray and killed a bystander" [syn: astray]
4 to or over a great extent or range; far; "wandered wide through many lands"; "he traveled widely" [syn: widely]

Moby Thesaurus

aberrant, abroad, abstract, accented, adrift, advanced, afield, all abroad, all off, all wrong, alveolar, amiss, ample, amplitudinous, apical, apico-alveolar, apico-dental, articulated, askew, assimilated, astray, at fault, awry, back, barytone, beside the mark, bilabial, bland, broad, broad-gauged, broad-minded, broadly, cacuminal, capacious, catholic, central, cerebral, checked, clear, close, collective, commodious, comprehensive, consonant, consonantal, continuant, copious, corrupt, cosmopolitan, deceptive, deep, defective, delusive, dental, deviant, deviational, deviative, diffuse, dissimilated, distantly and broadly, distorted, dorsal, ecumenical, ecumenistic, errant, erring, erroneous, expansive, extended, extending, extensive, fallacious, false, far afield, far and near, far and wide, far-embracing, far-extending, far-flung, far-flying, far-going, far-ranging, far-reaching, faultful, faulty, featureless, flat, flawed, front, full, general, generalized, generic, generous, glide, glossal, glottal, guttural, hard, heavy, heretical, heterodox, high, illogical, illusory, indefinite, indeterminate, indiscriminate, infinite, intonated, labial, labiodental, labiovelar, large-scale, lateral, lax, liberal, light, lingual, liquid, low, mid, monophthongal, muted, narrow, nasal, nasalized, nebulous, neutral, noninsular, nonspecific, not right, not true, occlusive, off, off the track, open, out, oxytone, palatal, palatalized, peccant, perverse, perverted, pharyngeal, pharyngealized, phonemic, phonetic, phonic, pitch, pitched, posttonic, progressive, radical, retroflex, roomy, rounded, scopic, self-contradictory, semivowel, soft, sonant, spacious, spacious of mind, spreading, stopped, straying, stressed, strong, surd, sweeping, syllabic, tense, thick, throaty, tolerant, tonal, tonic, twangy, unaccented, unbigoted, uncharacterized, undifferentiated, unfactual, unfanatical, unhidebound, unorthodox, unparochial, unproved, unprovincial, unrounded, unspecified, unstressed, untrue, vague, vast, velar, vocalic, vocoid, voiced, voiceless, voluminous, vowel, vowellike, weak, wholesale, wide-extended, wide-extending, wide-minded, wide-ranging, wide-reaching, wide-stretching, widely, widespread, wrong

English

Etymology

wīd, from *wīdas. Cognate with Dutch wijd, German weit, Swedish vid.

Pronunciation

/waɪd/

Adjective

  1. Having a large physical extent from side to side.
    We walked down a wide corridor.
  2. Large in scope.
    The inquiry had a wide remit.
  3. Operating at the side of the playing area.
    That team needs a decent wide player.

Antonyms

Related terms

Translations

Adverb

  1. extensively
    He travelled far and wide.
  2. completely
    He was wide awake.
  3. away from a given goal
    The arrow fell wide of the mark.

Noun

  1. A ball that passes so far from the batsman that the umpire deems it unplayable; the arm signal used by an umpire to signal a wide; the extra run added to the batting side's score

Old English

Etymology

From wīd.

Pronunciation

/wi:.de/

Adverb

  1. widely
For other uses of the word or acronym, see WIDE.
In the sport of cricket, a wide is one of two things:
A wide does not count as one of the six balls in an over, nor does it count as a ball faced by the batsman.
When a wide is bowled, a number of runs are awarded to the batting team, the number varying depending on local playing conditions in force. In Test cricket the award is one run; in some domestic competitions, particularly one-day cricket competitions, the award is two runs. These runs are scored as extras and are added to the team's total, but are not added to any batsman's total.
A batsman can not, by definition, be out bowled, leg before wicket, caught, or hit the ball twice off a wide, as a ball cannot be ruled as a wide if the ball strikes the batsman's bat or person. He may be out handled the ball, hit wicket, obstructing the field, run out, or stumped.
If the wicket-keeper fumbles or misses the ball, the batsmen may be able to take additional runs safely, and may choose to do so. The number of runs scored are scored as wides, not byes.
If the wicket-keeper misses the ball and it travels all the way to the boundary, the batting team immediately scores five wides, similarly as if the ball had been hit to the boundary for a four on a no ball.
If a ball qualifies as a no ball as well as a wide, the umpire will call it a no ball instead of a wide, and all the rules for a no ball apply.
Wides are considered to be the fault of the bowler, and are recorded as a negative statistic in a bowler's record. However, this has only been the case since the early 1980's - the first Test to record wides (and no-balls) against the bowler's analyses was India vs Pakistan in September, 1983.
Wides are not uncommon. A typical number occurring in a game might be in the range 5-20.
The baseball equivalent of a wide is a called "ball", in the sense that each is judged to be an "unfair" or "unhittable" delivery by the umpire.

See also

wide in Dutch: Wide (cricket)
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