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Widen   /wˈaɪdən/   Listen
Widen

verb
(past & past part. widened; pres. part. widening)
1.
Become broader or wider or more extensive.
2.
Make (clothes) larger.  Synonym: let out.
3.
Make wider.
4.
Extend in scope or range or area.  Synonyms: broaden, extend.  "Widen the range of applications" , "Broaden your horizon" , "Extend your backyard"



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"Widen" Quotes from Famous Books



... the military maneuvers and reproductions of the notable paintings. He picked up an issue dated June. A portrait of the new Austrian ambassador to France attracted his attention. He turned the leaf. What he saw on the following page caused him to widen his eyes and let slip an ejaculation loud enough to be heard by the chess players. Madame seemed on the point of rising. Maurice did not lower his eyes nor ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath

... land four hundred metres long by eighty broad was bought by the state in 1876 and cut away from the gardens of la Farnesina, to widen the bed of the Tiber. It was found to contain several ancient edifices, which have since become famous in topographical books. I refer more particularly to the patrician house discovered near the church of ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani

... in the desert did not count much in the trip down this strange, beautiful lost canyon. All canyons are not alike. This one did not widen, though the walls grew higher. They began to lean and bulge, and the narrow strip of sky above resembled a flowing blue river. Huge caverns had been hollowed out by water or wind. And when the brook ran close under one of these overhanging places the running water made a singular indescribable ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... be his mother. His mother herself had driven him home. He noted calmly that as a chauffeur she had the same faults as the contemned Lois Ingram. Still, she did drive, and they reached Ladderedge Hall in safety. He admired, and he was a little frightened by, his mother's terrific volition to widen her existence. She would insist on doing everything that might be done, and nobody could stop her. Who would have dreamt that she, with her narrow, troubled past, and her passionate temperament rendered ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... worn out nations of the West. [Sidenote: Effects of the Crusades.] Under these circumstances the crusades were hardly less a cause of terror to the Greeks than were the advances of the Turks themselves, and tended to widen rather than to heal the unhappy breach between the Latin and Greek Churches. [Sidenote: Unjustifiable proceedings of the Latins.] The foundation of a Latin Patriarchate at Jerusalem, after the taking of that city in A.D. 1099, could ...
— A Key to the Knowledge of Church History (Ancient) • John Henry Blunt

... growing in his eyes; and stupor trickling through his veins. For a minute he stood after she had ceased speaking, as though the full meaning of her words had been slow to reach his consciousness. Yet outwardly his face was calm, and only his eyes had seemed to change and widen and suffer as she spoke. Finally his ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill

... young and fools, do the same thing. But it so happened that these two, being also high-spirited, carried the difference farther than is usual with smitten, callow males and females, and let the breach widen until they separated, as they thought, finally. And she married in course of time, and so did he. It's a way people have; a way more or less good or bad, according to circumstances. She lived with a commonplace husband until he died and left her a widow, aged sixty or thereabout. ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo

... region between Lake Athabaska and the northern sea. Alexander Mackenzie's object was, in name at least, commercial—the extension of the trade of the North-West Company. But in reality, his incentive was that instinctive desire to widen the bounds of geographical knowledge, and to roll back the {75} mystery of unknown lands and seas which had already raised Hearne to eminence, and which later on was to lead Franklin ...
— Adventurers of the Far North - A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas • Stephen Leacock

... Bonaparte, at a somewhat later date, remarked the tendency of the French people, now that the revolutionary strifes were past, to settle down contentedly on their own little plots; and he emphasized the need of a colonial policy such as would widen the national life. The remark has been largely justified by events; and doubtless he discerned in the agrarian reforms of the Revolution an influence unfavourable to that racial dispersion which, under wise guidance, builds up an oceanic empire. The grievances of the ancien ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... evil brow, this shut mouth, Laura, even on the battle-field, looked harmless. It was like the face of a dead savage. The eyeballs were full on Vittoria, as if they dashed at an obstacle, not embraced an image. In proportion as they seemed to widen about her, Vittoria shrank. The whole woman ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the bigness of this great purpose. So many lives are dwarfed by their very littlenesses. We are bothered with being short-sighted. The eyeglasses of the Master's purpose for us would wondrously widen out our scope of vision. And through the new eyes would come broader, farther, clearer views, and changed action. The littleness of our ideas would be amusing if ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon

... cried Brigadier Appleton. "On some points I am inclined to think that Luffe's views were not always sound. Certainly let the boy go to Eton and Oxford. A fine idea, your Highness. The training will widen his mind, enlarge his ideas, and all that sort of thing. I will myself urge upon the Government's advisers the wisdom ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason

... tales, gathered from the rich literature of the childhood of the world, or from the books of the few modern men who have found the key of that wonderful world, is put forth not only without apology, but with the hope that it may widen the demand for these charming reports of a world in which the truths of our working world are loyally upheld, while its hard facts are quietly but authoritatively dismissed from attention. The widest interpretation has been given to the fairy tale, so ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... and dearer than he had guessed. Then the heart that has steadily beaten time to months of parting, leaps like a child at the instant of meeting again; then eyes that have so long fed on memory's vision widen and deepen with joy of the living truth; then the soul that has hungered and starved through an endless waiting, is suddenly filled with life and satisfied of ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... greatly enjoyed the situation. To them it meant a division of the Republican party vastly more damaging than the one in 1866. Opposition to Grant's candidacy also threatened to widen the breach. The Conservatives, led by Thurlow Weed, wishing to break the intolerant control of the Radicals by securing a candidate free from factional bias, had pronounced for the Soldier's nomination ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... threat offered by the northern shore did not seem to be so menacing. The river began to widen again and rapidly, and the scattered shots fired later on came from a great distance, falling short. Those discharged from the southern bank also missed the mark as widely. Henry no longer paid any attention to them, but was examining the forest and the curves of the river with a minute scrutiny. ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... promised to make for the good of both sides instead of the injury of either. The rivals agreed to keep out of each other's way as much as possible and even to help each other by an occasional exchange of singers. By this means it was purposed to widen the repertories of both companies, Mr. Damrosch providing the Metropolitan establishment with a Brnnhilde and an Isolde for Jean de Reszke's Siegmund, Siegfried, and Tristan, and the Metropolitan company lending him in return Melba, Eames, and Calv, or others, to ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... became evident that if we continued our walk we should widen the distance between ourselves and the stream, the noise ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne

... that the fate of his companion had appalled him; and seeing Dan nearly ready to discharge his gun again, he hastened to widen the distance between them. He rowed with the desperation of a doomed man. As the boat receded, Longworth raised himself up, as if to assure the fugitives that he was ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic

... touch," returned Turnbull. "These hansom-cab rides will raise the tone—raise the tone, my dear fellow—of our London youths, widen their horizon, brace their nervous system, make them acquainted with the various public monuments of our great city. Education, Wayne, education. How many excellent thinkers have pointed out that political reform is useless until we produce a cultured populace. ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... gilds and military associations in order to realize what a high degree of manly civic consciousness can arise from the visible community of duty and achievement. The mechanical worker will become the instructor of his temporary comrade and guest, and the latter will in turn widen the other's outlook, and emulate him in the development of the processes of production. The manual worker will bring to the desk and the board-room his freedom from prepossessions and the practical experience of his calling; he will ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau

... I am beautiful, and my look is languid because of my love. Look into my pupil; I will narrow and widen it, and give it a peculiar glitter—the twinkling of a star at night, the playfulness of all precious stones—of diamonds, of green emeralds, of yellowish topaz, of blood-red rubies. Look into my eyes: It is I, the queen—I am crowning myself, ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev

... a private hospital, lying weak and helpless from the ordeal through which she had passed. It all came back to her now with a stinging intensity, causing her white hands to clench hard, and her eyes to widen with a ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody

... fact, in one sense it will not be an experiment at all. You have tried your powers, gained self-possession and command of your natural resources; developed your ingenuity, learned the technicalities of your art, so to speak, already. You propose now, as I understand, to extend your usefulness, widen your sphere of action, address yourself to a larger public, and make a profession out of what was before only a side issue in your life. It's a new field, and it 's a noble one, taken in its highest aspect, as you have always taken it. My motto for ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... and Gregory for assistance, he had met a final failure. Brushed with sleepiness they were slipping away from him. He was reluctant to have them go, leave him; the distance between them and himself appeared to widen immeasurably as he stood watching them settle for the night. He wanted to call them back, "Helena and Gregory, Gregory!" But he remained quiet, his head a little bent, his heart heavy. The tide of sleep, silent, mystical, recompensing! It wasn't that, exactly, ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer

... United States as the Bohemian coffee pot, has met with much favor in this country. Elsewhere it is known as the Carlsbad. It is made of china, and the European manufacturer has a patent on the porcelain strainer, or grid, which is provided with slits that are very fine on the inner side but that widen on the outer side to permit careful straining and ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... it is better in books. And why do we fuss and fume sometimes? Why are we perverse and ask for something else? We don't know what ourselves. It would be the worse for us if our petulant prayers were answered. Come, try, give any one of us, for instance, a little more independence, untie our hands, widen the spheres of our activity, relax the control and we ... yes, I assure you ... we should be begging to be under control again at once. I know that you will very likely be angry with me for that, and will begin shouting and stamping. Speak for yourself, you will say, and for your miseries ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky

... a few, or of capture and confiscation by the belligerents whose laws they defied. Erskine was followed by a new ambassador from England, Mr. Jackson. His mission, however, had no other result than to widen the breach between the two nations. A controversy almost immediately arose between the minister and Mr. Smith, the secretary of state,—or rather Mr. Madison himself, who, as he complained at a later ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay

... claiming, and obtaining, payments higher than many made to the most refined products of the universities! It is the way of the world; we are bound for change, change, and yet more change; and no man may say how the cycles will widen. Luxury has grown on us since the thousands of wealthy idlers who draw their money from trade began to make the stream of lavish expenditure turn into a series of rushing rapids. The flow of wasted wealth is no longer like the equable gliding of the full Thames; ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... he thought he could do as well as another—in fact, he knew he could. But could he hope that in time his mind would widen and deepen sufficiently to enable him to write something worth writing, something that might win her admiration? Perhaps, when he had shed all his opinions. Many had gone already, more would follow, and one ...
— The Lake • George Moore

... four blocks long, very narrow, with sidewalks barely three feet wide; yet here is done most of the foreign retail trade. In a short time a new Escolta will be built in the filled district, as it would cost too much to widen the old street. As a car line runs through the Escolta, there is a bad congestion of traffic at all times except in the early morning hours. The Bridge of Spain is one of the impressive sights of Manila. With its massive arches of gray ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch

... copper mine was always going to widen out into a six-foot lead; never by any possibility could it grow any smaller. The trust shares were going up—"not a point or two at a time, gentlemen, but with the spring of a panther, suh." Of course the railroad earnings were a little off this month, but wait ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith

... with the Reasons you offer to show the Necessity of a publick & explicit Declaration of Independency. I cannot conceive what good Reason can be assignd against it. Will it widen the Breach? This would be a strange Question after we have raised Armies and fought Battles with the British Troops, set up an American Navy, permitted the Inhabitants of these Colonies to fit out armed Vessels to cruize on all Ships &c belonging to any of ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams

... Throughout 1709 and into the early months of 1710, personal jealousies drove the Godolphin-Marlborough interest farther and farther away from the Junto. Robert Harley and the Dukes of Somerset and Shrewsbury, in their determination to overthrow the Administration, exploited every chance to widen the rifts between Anne and her Ministers and between the two ministerial factions. Abigail Hill Masham, who soon became an agent of Harley, replaced the Duchess of Marlborough ...
— Atalantis Major • Daniel Defoe

... had blindly followed, it had been that before death all disguises drop, that in dying one is sincere. But since death had not followed the drinking of the draught—"Ha! What draught was that?" she asks in consternation. Brangaene gives the desperate truth. "The love-draught!" Isolde's eyes widen with horror, and turning from Brangaene fix themselves upon Tristan. The situation flashes before her for one shocked moment in its true colours; and as before her calling his name had revealed all love, it reveals now her sense of an unspeakable awfulness in what has happened to them. ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... story of past civilizations sadly shows, the gulf between the popular superstitions and the thoughts of scholars may widen until no bridge can span it, and religion perishes in it. It seems to me that the time has come when the pulpit must keep no longer silence. Its silence will not seal the lips of other teachers. Books and papers are everywhere forcing the ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton

... late, low sun of a summer afternoon streams in through the leaded window,—one muses on the chance that so may the young painter from Augsburg, now but nineteen, himself have sat upon this very bench and leaned across this very table, in a like determination to widen out his small store of book-learning. He could have had little opportunity to do so in the ever-shifting, bailiff-haunted home of his boyhood. And somewhere he certainly learned to write quite ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue

... what is best worth seeking, a man can not go wrong by "falling in love" with the works of a relatively limited number of authors who kindle him personally. It is all right to widen the field occasionally, for diversion, for contrast, for sharpening style, and for balancing of ideas, but strength comes of finding a main line and holding to it. No man can read a book with sympathetic understanding without taking from it ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense

... the fourth day after Charlie's disappearance that Jim suddenly saw the canyon walls widen. He struggled at last up onto a sandy beach and looked about him. The canyon walls here, though very rough, gave promise of access to the top. Jim examined the beach carefully for trace of Charlie and, finding none, he prepared to spend ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow

... country. Let us say what we believe to be a fact: The disciplined thought that the Negro is receiving at this school will give a freshness, a manliness, a hopefulness, and a faith which will deliver him from the tyranny of his surroundings, widen his views of his own capabilities, make him conscious of belonging to a race that has rich things in store for the world, and glorify his heart with a thousand strange and fruitful sympathies and with endless heroic aspirations. ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various

... brink of war, but get the tidings, and she would no longer think of joining Britain and her allies. Add to these considerations the strategical value of a break of the French line at any point, with prisoners captured, and a huge wedge thrown into the gap, which would widen out so that the road to the sea would be barred no longer, and one sees sufficient reason for this new German ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton

... went by, and the creek began to widen. "Where are you going?" called the trader. "Wheresoever you go, at the end of your path stand my village and my wigwam. You cannot stay all day in that boat. If you come not back at the bidden hour, Darden's squaw will beat you. Come over, Morning Light, come over, and take me in your boat, and ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... bathed in sunshine; a dripping, sobbing fountain; great masses of glaring flowers that mix their reds and yellows in hideous contrast and sicken the beholder with a desire for change; emerald lawns that grow and widen as the eye endeavors vainly to grasp them, thrown into bold relief by the rich foliage, all brown, and green, and red, and bronze-tinged, that spreads behind them; while beyond all these, as far as sight can reach, great swelling parks show here and there, alive with deer, that toss and fret ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... gun was discharged on board the cruiser, it became necessary to fall off her course just a point or two in order to get a proper aim, and her captain was quick to see the disadvantage of this, as he was only assisting the slaver to widen the distance between them. It would seem to the uninitiated to be the easiest thing possible to cripple the brigantine by a few well directed shots, but when sailing in the wake of an enemy this is by no means so easily done. Besides, the distance between ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... delivered to me the dispatch herewith transmitted. It will expose to your view the disposition of the president of the United States on the provisional measure temporarily agreed upon between the American commander-in-chief and myself, in consequence of an earnest desire not to widen the breach existing between the two countries, the revocation of the orders in council having removed the plea used in congress for a declaration ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... with dinner almost over, and Aggie lifting her ice-cream spoon straight up in front of her and opening her mouth with a sort of lockjaw movement, the bell rang. We thought it was Charlie Sands. It was not. Aggie faced the doorway and I saw her eyes widen. Tish and I turned. ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... of historical events from the first made such blending, which would doubtless have required great sacrifices on both sides, an impossible consummation. In point of fact, the events were such as to widen the abyss between the two systems. The meeting of Judaism and Hellenism unfortunately occurred at the very moment when the classical Hellenes had been supplanted by the hellenized Macedonians and Syrians, who had accepted what were probably the worst elements ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow

... villainous, yet all were saleable. I said so; and the next moment saw myself, the figure of a miserable renegade, bearing arms in the wrong camp. I was to look at pictures thenceforward, not with the eye of the artist, but the dealer; and I saw the stream widen that divided me from all ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... kindly effort seems to have been without result: the irritated pride of the antagonists remained unsoothed by the love-feast of St. Stephen's day; and the breach continued to widen until the abbot of St. Mary's obtained a timely accession to his authority in the year 1125. The Doge Domenico Michele, having in the second crusade secured such substantial advantages for the Venetians as might well counterbalance ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin

... the conclusion that we have reached a point where we are not only able, but also required, by the law of our own being, to take a more active part in our personal evolution than heretofore, this discovery will afford us a new outlook upon life and widen our horizon with fresh interests and ...
— The Creative Process in the Individual • Thomas Troward

... wisdom as men themselves have improved. The quiet gods, without effort of their own, have grown holier and purer by the agitations and toil which civilise their worshippers. In other words, the same influences which elevate and widen our sense of human duty give corresponding height and nobleness to our ideas of the divine character. The history of the civilisation of the earth is the history of the civilisation of Olympus also. It will be seen that the deity whom De Maistre sets up is below ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley

... English governors indeed grew sensible of this, and applied themselves to retrieve matters by a gentler treatment, but the mischief was already done and irretrieveable; and our missionaries took care to widen the breach, and to keep up their spirit of hatred and revenge, by instilling into them the notions of jealousy, that such overtures of friendship, on the part of the English, were no better than so many snares laid to make them perish, by a false security, ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard

... the marriage of the Duc d'Orleans, Richelieu and the Queen-mother next laboured to widen the breach between Louis XIII and his wife; for which purpose they represented that she had taken an active part in the lately detected conspiracy, and was secretly intriguing with Spain against the interests of her royal husband; ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... and larger scale. The division of labor is greater and greater. Not only does the gulf between capitalist and laborer widen, but with it the gulf between skilled and unskilled labor." ("What Shall Our Boys Do for a ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall

... but historically. I have no mind to enter into arguments to move either or both sides to a more charitable compliance one with another; I do not see that it is probable such a discourse would be either suitable or successful; the breaches seem rather to widen, and tend to a widening farther than to closing; and who am I that I should think myself able to influence either one side or the other? But this I may repeat again, that it is evident death will reconcile us all—on the other side the grave we shall be all brethren again; in heaven, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... voluble and hasty way of speaking, the vivacity of their motions, and their complexion, animated by the base passion of lucre. We noticed in particular their eager and piercing looks, their faces and features lengthened out into acute points, which a malicious and perfidious smile cannot widen; their tall, slim, and supple form; the earnestness of their demeanour, and lastly, their beards, usually red, and their long black robes, tightened round their loins by a leather girdle; for every thing but their filthiness distinguishes them from the Lithuanian peasants; ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... mill; The housewife, keen to the shivering air, Arrests her foot on the cottage stair, Instinctive taught by the mother-love, And thinks of the sleeping ones above. Why start the listeners? Why does the course Of the mill-stream widen? Is it a horse— Hark to the sound of his hoofs, they say— That gallops so wildly Williamsburg way! God! what was that, like a human shriek From the winding valley? Will nobody speak? Will nobody answer those women who cry As ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth

... Point Hansborough the canyon widens, "the marble benches retreat, new strata of limestone, quartzite, and sandstone come up from the river," writes Stanton, "and the debris forms a talus equal to a mountain slope. Here the bottoms widen into little farms covered with green grass and groves of mesquite, making a most charming summer picture, in strong contrast with the dismal narrow canyons above." They then passed the Little Colorado and entered the Grand Canyon proper, meeting ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... with all my troubles you would, I respectfully submit, realize that your proposal is not simple but extraordinarily complicated, even pre-supposing seraphic dispositions on either side. If you determine finally that these two officers are to be independent, I foresee that you will greatly widen the scope of dual control which is now only applicable to my great ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton

... the twigs and the tear-drops swell on the points of pendant icicles. Brain counts for a good deal more to-day than heart does. It will win more applause and earn a larger salary. Thought is driven with a curb-bit lest it quicken into a pace and widen out into a swing that transcends the dictates of good form. Exuberance is in bad odor. Appeals to the heart are not thought to be quite in good taste. The current demand is for ideas—not taste. I asked a member ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis

... and the suggested vignette of a lusty old gentleman scrambling among tangle. It is to be remembered that he came to engineering while yet it was in the egg and without a library, and that he saw the bounds of that profession widen daily. He saw iron ships, steamers, and the locomotive engine, introduced. He lived to travel from Glasgow to Edinburgh in the inside of a forenoon, and to remember that he himself had 'often been ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson

... "Do you, too," she asked her "labboardest," "feel yourself widen out of yourself and down and round into all this wonderful boat till you are ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable

... Quarterly Review (London) for January, 1876, which contains an interesting paper on "Wordsworth and Gray." After quoting Wordsworth's remark that "Gray was at the head of those poets who, by their reasonings, have attempted to widen the space of separation between prose and metrical composition, and was, more than any other man, curiously elaborate in the construction of his own poetic diction," the ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray

... horribly,— Scamper of affrighted feet, Voices cursing sail and sheet, While the tall ship shook in irons— All the peril that environs Vessels 'twixt the wind and rock Clawing—driving? Did the shock, As the sunk reef split her back, First arouse him? Did the crack Widen swiftly and deposit Him in homeless night? Or was it, Not when wave or wind assail'd, But in waters dumb and veil'd, That a looming shape uprist Sudden from the Channel mist, And with crashing, rending bows Woke him, in his padded house, To a world of alter'd features? ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... richness, they wanted to sell part of them to get means to work the rest. We had plenty of chances to buy for a few hundred dollars in money or trade mines partly opened, showing narrow streaks of good ore, which, according to the prevailing belief, would widen out and pay richly as soon as they were down through ...
— A Gold Hunter's Experience • Chalkley J. Hambleton

... They're not meant to take down a fortress. Scratching around on the surface with them would just mark the thing up. We can widen that opening by quite a bit, and once it's widened, I can flip in the bomb. But it would be just blind luck if we nailed the one we're after that way. With a dozen bombs we could break up the station. ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz

... bold to say, that during the last hundred, and still more during the last fifty years, Oriental studies have contributed more than any other branch of scientific research to change, to purify, to clear, and intensify the intellectual atmosphere of Europe, and to widen our horizon in all that pertains to the Science of Man, in history, philology, theology, and philosophy. We have not only conquered and annexed new worlds to the ancient empire of learning, but we have leavened the old world with ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller

... smooth and deep, the weeds beneath her feet are soft and cool, ripples widen and glistening beads of bubble rise on the ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Marjorie Allen Seiffert

... of a reconciliation from your account of my uncle's visit to your mother, in order to set her against an almost friendless creature whom once he loved! But is it not my duty to try for it? Ought I to widen my error by obstinacy and resentment, because of their resentment; which must appear reasonable to them, as they suppose my flight premeditated; and as they are made to believe, that I am capable of triumphing in it, and over them, with ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... pounds. To ensure this unusual strength it is necessary that its sides should be of equal thickness and the bottom of a uniform solidity throughout, in order that no particular expansion may ensue from sudden changes of temperature. The neck must, moreover, be perfectly round and widen gradually towards the shoulder. In addition—and this is of the utmost consequence—the inside ought to be perfectly smooth, as a rough interior causes the gas to make efforts to escape, and thus renders an explosion imminent. The composition of the glass, too, is not without its importance, as a ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly

... is of all time; it suffices to widen slightly the narrow circle in which these personages are about to act to find the coefficient reasons of events which take place in the very highest spheres ...
— The Vicar of Tours • Honore de Balzac

... no information he could gather except by his eyes. And chiefly, the face of Elizabeth. He knew her like a book in which he had often read. Twice he read the danger signals. When the great roast was being removed, he saw her eyes widen and her lips contract a trifle, and he knew that someone had come very close to the danger line indeed. Again when dessert was coming in bright shoals on the trays of the Chinese servants, the ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand

... was, she did not flinch as I came; only her eyes seemed to widen upon me in wonder. And for all my desperate hurry I had time to see, first, that they were graver than other girls' eyes, and next ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... how could she do it, how could she consent to do it?" Suddenly she found herself, and herself alone, as it seemed, made responsible for this disaster; for the feeling beginning with Katie seemed to grow, and widen, and widen, like the circles of water into which a stone is thrown, and she was condemned by her friends, by the people who had known her and her father, condemned as false to her friendship, as unwomanly. Katie she could forgive ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... actual facts as we do already know directly. When this has been accomplished (and our intellectual habits are so deeply ingrained that the task is by no means easy) we can then go on to other philosophers' descriptions of the facts with which their own efforts to widen their direct knowledge have acquainted them and, by synthesising the general terms which they have been obliged to employ, we also may come to know these more comprehensive facts. Unless it is understood synthetically, ...
— The Misuse of Mind • Karin Stephen

... seem to have strayed from the proper boundaries in going so far. But it is one of the offices of this book to widen the area of research, and relate the ghost-story anew to the whole literature of wonder and imagination. Such sagas as that which Dr Douglas Hyde has translated with consummate art from the Irish, "Teig O'Kane and the Corpse," which Mr W.B. Yeats called a little masterpiece; ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... models to imitate, of examples from which to make deductions; the more resources he has within himself and about him for self-development and improvement. A child's vocabulary increases rapidly through new experiences. A mature person can create new surroundings. He can deliberately widen his horizon either by reading or association. The child is mentally alert. A man can keep himself intellectually alert. A child delights in his use of his powers of expression. A man can easily make his intercourse a source of delight to himself and to all with whom he comes in contact. A child's ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... received us with polite coldness,—like perfect strangers,—but she was not insulting, only at times somewhat ungenerously sarcastic with me, who was not armed to parry her thrusts. I felt quite miserable, for I did not wish to widen the gap between her and her nephew, and on the other hand I did not see how our intercourse could be made more pleasant by any endeavors of mine, for I was ignorant of the art of ingratiating myself with persons whom I felt adverse ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... finding themselves, as they supposed, on a coast so very similar to it. As we ran along the coast, the mouth of a broad river opened before us, and, with the lead going to ascertain the depth of water we stood in towards it. On drawing near, it seemed to widen still more; and our captain being anxious to explore it, the wind also being fair, we crossed the bar, which had a considerable depth over it. The river, at the mouth, was nearly four miles wide, but it narrowed shortly to about a mile. Still ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston

... few landings and level places. The very state of his mind, superinduced by his condition, caused the breach to widen between him and his partner. At last that individual began to wish that Hurstwood was out of it. It so happened, however, that a real estate deal on the part of the owner of the land arranged things even more effectually than ill-will could ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser

... was engaged in special religious services night after night for nearly the whole winter at several appointments of his circuit. The revival influence seemed to widen and deepen as the weeks went by. He often called to invite Zenas to these meetings. At times the young man seemed strangely subdued and docile, and Neville rejoiced over what he considered the yielding of his will to the hallowed ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow

... 1824, and was buried in St. Giles's churchyard on March 4th. There never appears to have been any memorial stone, and I have found it impossible to locate the exact position of the grave. As a corner of the churchyard was cut off to widen the street, and to remove a dangerous corner, under the City of Norwich Act of 1867, it is quite likely that the remains are now under ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper

... snowy hand, High-waving wood, and sea-encircled strand. "Hear me," she cried, "ye rising Realms! record "Time's opening scenes, and Truth's unerring word.— "There shall broad streets their stately walls extend, "The circus widen, and the crescent bend; "There, ray'd from cities o'er the cultur'd land, "Shall bright canals, and solid roads expand.— "There the proud arch, Colossus-like, bestride "Yon glittering streams, and bound ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip

... defence of his good friend, Bernhard Severin Ingemann, whose excellent but overly sentimental lyrics had invited the barbed wit of the humorist. But although Grundtvig's contributions to these disputes were both able and pointed, their main effect was to widen the breach between him and the ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg

... Bell-street, Spiceal-street, Park-street, and Moor-street, which not only incline to the centre above-mentioned, but all terminate with their narrow ends into the grand passage. These streets are narrow at the entrance, and widen as you proceed: the narrow ends were formed with the main street at first, and were not, at that time, intended for streets themselves. As the town increased, other blunders of the same kind were committed, witness the gateway late at the east end of New-street, the two ends of Worcester-street, ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton

... been out on bail before, but never for quite so much. It was almost worth it, though, to see Leslie Coombes's eyes widen and Mohammed Ali O'Brien's jaw drop when he dumped the bag of sunstones, blazing with the heat of the day and of his body, on George Lunt's magisterial bench and invited George to pick out twenty-five thousand sols' worth. Especially after the production Coombes had made of posting ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper

... bridle among the slippery boulders. The sun was well out of sight, and the chirping of crickets among the herbage announced that soon the evening shades would prevail. Evidently, camping was to be my portion, so I kept my eyes open for a good spot for the purpose. The canon appeared to widen out a little way ahead: there I should probably find good grazing for the horse (though not, I ruefully reflected, for myself). Arriving at the opening, I found, as I expected, grassy slopes rising from the creek, and resolved to make ...
— The Penance of Magdalena & Other Tales of the California Missions • J. Smeaton Chase

... of people, ranged symmetrically, widen out from the lowest circle, which encloses the arena, to the highest, where masts have been raised to support a veil of hyacinth hung in the air on ropes. Staircases, which radiate towards the centre, intersect, at equal distances, ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert

... and tints. It is really a matter for regret that we, as a people, have not been as willing to learn from the French the art of cooking and eating as we have been to acquire from them knowledge of the art of dress. Until we widen our horizon sufficiently to do this, we have not even begun to develop all our food resources or to understand the first principles of true food economy—which is not at all synonymous with ...
— Twenty-four Little French Dinners and How to Cook and Serve Them • Cora Moore

... alive and awake. A transition line has been passed, and the study of history, like everything else, enters upon a new phase. The elementary teaching which has been sufficient up to this, which has in fact been the only possible teaching, must widen out in the third period, and the relative importance of aims is the line on which the change to more advanced ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart

... that the object of this writing is accomplished—to widen our view of the great principle of continuity in the universe. It is not sought to dwarf the earth, but to fit it rightly into its place as a part of a great whole. It is better for a state to be a part of a glorious union than to be independent; better for a man to belong ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren

... of the continuous detrition, it is no uncommon occurrence for large slips to give way, and be swept off in the red whirling current. It might be supposed that in time this never-ceasing action of the water would widen the stream to unnatural dimensions. But, no. For every encroachment on one bank there is a corresponding formation against the opposite,—a deposit caused by the eddy which the new curve has produced, so that the river thus preserves its original breadth. This remarkable action may be noted ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... powerless to accomplish the object to which his personal desires had been sacrificed. His love of his craft had gradually been merged in the larger love for his fellow-workers, and in the resulting desire to lift and widen their lot. He had once fancied that this end might be attained by an internal revolution in the management of the Westmore mills; that he might succeed in creating an industrial object-lesson conspicuous enough to point the way to wiser law-making and ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... deepened and deepened under this bereavement, of which, she said to herself, with a shudder, she was the cause. And this is the course of nature; there is nothing like suffering to enlighten the giddy brain, widen the narrow mind, improve ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... Dodge after a careful survey. "I should clear the stream which runs muddy in this place by throwing pebbles to the bottom; widen it twenty feet more; make a pretty little egg-shaped island in the centre, upon which I should plant a few shrubs and perhaps a weeping willow, which would thrive ...
— Bertie and the Gardeners - or, The Way to be Happy • Madeline Leslie

... a message. This principle was acted upon recently in a most practical way by the Pennsylvania Railroad, which at its own expense installed five hundred and twenty-five telephones in the homes of its workmen in Altoona. In the same way, it is clearly the social duty of the telephone company to widen out its system until every point is covered, and then to distribute its gross charges as fairly as it can. The whole must carry the whole—that is the philosophy of rates which must finally be recognized by legislatures and telephone companies alike. It can never, of course, be reduced to a system ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson

... appoints a fast-day once a year, and he makes the bishops: and if the government would take half the pains to keep the Catholics out of the arms of France that it does to widen Temple Bar, or improve Snow Hill, the King would get into his hands the appointments of the titular Bishops of Ireland. Both Mr. C——'s sisters enjoy pensions more than sufficient to place the two greatest dignitaries of the Irish Catholic ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury

... should be using a verse of Dr. Watts to puzzle you! But if it be so, he keeps it sticking by your thought very pertinaciously, until some simple utterance of your mother about the Love that reigns in the other world seems on a sudden to widen Heaven, and to waft away ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell

... a sigh. The sounds of English speech from the lips of Malcolm addressed to himself, seemed vaguely to indicate the opening of a gulf between them, destined ere long to widen to the whole social width between a fisherman and a marquis, swallowing up in it not only all old memories, but all later friendship and confidence. A shadow of bitterness crossed the poor fellow's mind, and in it the seed of distrust began to strike root, ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... that was well for France. You conquered for her, as well as for yourselves, and for the honor and the joy of it. Why not do the same here? Why not widen the scope of the fight? Don't go haggling over differences in politics and religion. These things are utterly futile. What does it matter whether your nation is the eldest daughter of the Church or the eldest daughter of Reason? The only thing that does matter ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... continue almost indefinitely in straight lines. The hardened and contracting surface being free to move laterally on account of there being a more heated and plastic layer below it, the cracks once initiated above would continually widen at the surface as they penetrated deeper and deeper into the slightly heated substratum. Now, as basalt begins to soften at about 1400 deg. F. and the surface of Mars has cooled to at least the freezing-point—perhaps ...
— Is Mars Habitable? • Alfred Russel Wallace

... which can replace the need for a higher theoretical training. Generally, their attention is absorbed by the smallest of details, which, though each is of immense importance to the efficiency of the whole Arm, are not calculated to widen their intellectual horizon, and in the few great manoeuvres in which an Officer might find an opportunity of enlarging his knowledge, he finds himself lacking in the foundation necessary to make full ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi

... beautiful. The mountains are less high, the valleys widen, and at length hills only appear at intervals, clothed with trees, meadows, and fields. In the Tuscan dominions I noticed many cypresses, a tree I had not seen since my departure from Constantinople and Smyrna. The country seems well populated, and ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer

... view, reasserted itself more strongly than ever as a mutual possession; they could not help perceiving its value. Janet made a fairly successful attempt to drown her sense of insincerity in the recognition. She, Janet, was conscious of a deliberate effort to widen and deepen the sympathy between them. An obscure desire to make reparation, she hardly knew for what, combined itself with a great longing to see their friendship the altogether beautiful and perfect thing its mirage was, and pushed her on to ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)

... on the fishing pole, Roger felt down in the water, and then discovered that Phil's feet were crossed and held by a rock that was balanced on another rock. In coming down, Phil's weight had caused the space between the two rocks to widen, then the opening had partly closed, holding the feet as if in the ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer

... long time not a week went by that Field did not invent some marvellous tale respecting Emma Abbott, once the most popular light-opera prima donna of the American stage—every yarn calculated to widen the circle of her popularity. Upon an absolutely fictitious autobiography of Miss Abbott he once exhausted the fertility of his fancy in the form of a review,[1] which went the rounds of the press and which, on her ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... people for about thirty years, it sometimes occurred to me that only the inmates of their monasteries and the recluses of both systems should be enumerated as Buddhists and Taoists; but I was in the end constrained to widen that judgment, and to admit a considerable following of both among the people, who have neither received the tonsure nor assumed the yellow top. Dr. Eitel, in concluding his discussion of this point in his "Lecture on Buddhism, an Event in History," says: "It is not ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien

... a magician, breathing whispers of enchantment, Stands and waves a wand above me till the flowing of my soul, Like the tide's deep rhythm, rises in successive swells that widen All my circumscribed horizon, till the finite fades away; And the fountains of my being in their innermost recesses Are unsealed, and as the seas sweep, sweep the waters of my soul Till they reach the shores of Heaven and with ebb-tide bear a pearl Back in to the heart's safe-keeping, where ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various

... about himself now only as it were by accident, only when he failed to perceive that the truth would not be to her liking. But this was often, and every time it happened it seemed to him as well as to her at once to widen the gulf between them and to move further away any artificial means of crossing it. Thus the new sense of self-dissatisfaction and self-distrust which had grown upon him centred round his wife and seemed to owe ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope

... Mystical tendency, the Humanistic or Rational tendency, and the distinctive Faith-tendency of the Reformation. These three strands are indissolubly woven together in this type of so-called spiritual Religion. It was an impressive attempt, whether completely successful or not, to widen the sphere and scope of religion, to carry it into the whole of life, to ground it in the very nature of the human spirit, and to demonstrate that to be a man, possessed of full life and complete health, is to be religious, ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones

... &c. 35; budding, gemmation[obs3]. overgrowth, overdistension[obs3]; hypertrophy, tympany[obs3]. bulb &c. (convexity) 250; plumper; superiority of size. [expansion of the universe] big bang; Hubble constant. V. become larger &c. (large &c. 192); expand, widen, enlarge, extend, grow, increase, incrassate[obs3], swell, gather; fill out; deploy, take open order, dilate, stretch, distend, spread; mantle, wax; grow up, spring up; bud, bourgeon[Fr], shoot, sprout, germinate, put forth, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... another circle, who have in each hand a chichicois, or calabash, with a stick thrust through it to serve for a handle. When the dance begins, the women move round {324} the men in the centre, from left to right, and the men contrariwise from right to left, and they sometimes narrow and sometimes widen their circles. In this manner the dance continues without intermission the whole night, new performers successively taking the place of those who are ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... greatness that was not to be won by following the war-path. He had wielded the tomahawk; he had bivouacked among armed men on the field of battle: now he was eager for the schoolroom. He wished to widen his knowledge and to see the great world that lay beyond the rude ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood

... to widen the breach. Mrs. Smethurst's house adjoined the links, standing to the right of the fourth tee: and, as the Literary Society was in the habit of entertaining visiting lecturers, many a golfer had foozled his ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse

... whole, not only of Earraid, but of the neighboring part of Mull (which they call the Ross) is nothing but a jumble of granite rocks with heather in among. At first the creek kept narrowing as I had looked to see; but presently to my surprise it began to widen out again. At this I scratched my head, but had still no notion of the truth; until at last I came to a rising ground, and it burst upon me all in a moment that I was cast upon a little, barren isle, and cut off on every side by ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... A little basket weaves of willow twigs, To bear her eggs to town on market days; And work but serves t'enliven conversation. Some idle neighbours now come straggling in, Draw round their chairs, and widen out the circle. Without a glass the tale and jest go round; And every one, in his own native way, Does what he can to cheer the merry group. Each tells some little story of himself, That constant subject upon which mankind, Whether in court or country, love ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie

... were later divorced or else the offenders were expelled from Jerusalem. In the light of the oldest records it appears that the Samaritans were able to establish almost as pure a lineage as the Jews. Naturally during the succeeding years the ancient breach continued to widen until it was ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent

... behind me or at the side, can hear it as well or nearly as well as you who are in front. This is because I give a shock to the air all round my hands, and waves go out on all sides, making as it were gloves of crowdings and partings widening and widening away from the clap as circles widen on a pond. Thus the waves travel behind me, above me, and on all sides, until they hit the walls, the ceiling, and the floor of the room, and wherever you happen to be, ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley

... see your cottage rise, And grow a church before your eyes.' They scarce had spoke when fair and soft The roof began to mount aloft, Aloft rose every beam and rafter, The heavy wall climb'd slowly after; The chimney widen'd and grew higher. Became a steeple with a spire. The kettle to the top was hoist, And there stood fasten'd to a joist; Doom'd ever in suspense to dwell, 'Tis now no kettle, but a bell. A wooden jack which had almost Lost by disuse the art to roast, A sudden alteration feels, ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various

... we are too ready with complaint In this fair world of God's. Had we no hope Indeed beyond the zenith and the slope Of yon gray blank of sky, we might be faint To muse upon eternity's constraint Round our aspirant souls. But since the scope Must widen early, is it well to droop For a few days consumed in loss and taint? O pusillanimous Heart, be comforted,— And like a cheerful traveler, take the road, Singing beside the hedge. What if the bread Be bitter in thine inn, and thou unshod To meet the flints?—At least it may be said, "Because ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various



Words linked to "Widen" :   flare, white out, territorialize, territorialise, change, stretch, vary, narrow, modify, alter, flare out, dilate, globalise, let out, globalize, distend, increase, take in, expand



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