Word.ws English Dictionary

expansive

/ɪkˈspænsɪv/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

British/ɪkˈspansɪv/

expansive adjective: comprehensive in scope or extent.

Adjective

expansive (comparative more expansive, superlative most expansive)

  1. Comprehensive in scope or extent.
    • expansive research work
    • She laughed, she winked, and nodded knowingly at Pen; she tapped him on the arm with her fan; she tapped Blanche; she tapped the Major;—her contentment was boundless, and her method of showing her joy equally expansive.1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 46, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published...
  2. Talkative and sociable.
  3. Able to be expanded.
    • The Elastick or expansive faculty of the Air, whereby it dilates itself, when compressed (indeed this lower Region of it by reason of the weight of the superincumbent is al∣ways in a compressed State) hath been made use of in the common Weather-glasses, in Wind guns, and in several ingenious...1691, John Ray, The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation, page 56
    • Such instruments, however ingenious, are not of scientific value; because they do not admit of rigid comparison, are liable to alter in their contractile and expansive properties, and cannot be made to indicate precisely alike.1864, Negretti and Zambra, chapter 11, in A Treatise on Meteorological Instruments
  4. Exhibiting expansivity.

expansive meaning in Urdu, Malayalam, Kannada and Odia

expansive in Urdu

بسیت, پھیلنے والا, توسیعی

expansive in Malayalam

വികസിക്കാൻ വെമ്പുന്ന, വ്യാപ്തിയുള്ള, സംസാരിക്കാൻ വെമ്പുന്ന, വിടരുന്ന

expansive in Kannada

ಸ್ನೇಹಪೂರ್ಣ, ಉಲ್ಲಾಸ ಪ್ರಕೃತಿಯ, ಗೆಲುವಿನಿಂದ ಕೂಡಿದ, ಹಿಗ್ಗಬಲ್ಲ, ವಿಸ್ತಾರವಾಗಬಲ್ಲ, ವಿಕಸನ ಸಾಧ್ಯವಾದ

expansive in Odia

expansive; extensive; broad
ବିପୁଳ bipuḷa
More languagesFewer languages
expansive in Sanskrit
पृथु pṛthú

Examples of expansive in a sentence

  • Expansive and guidelike he continued, "First you'd better come up and look the loft over.
  • His garden is an expansive project for an octogenarian, or any kind of genarian.
  • Explore the expansive universe of The Dying Earth novel series in the Dungeons Crawl Classics roleplaying game adaptation.

All 20 example sentences with expansive

Forms of expansive

comparativemore expansive
superlativemost expansive

Origin of expansive

From Latin expāns-, past-participle stem of expandere (“to spread out”; see expand) + -ive.

Words formed from expansive

Words that rhyme with expansive

5 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about expansive

What does expansive mean?
Expansive means comprehensive in scope or extent.
What is expansive in Urdu?
Expansive in Urdu is بسیت, پھیلنے والا, توسیعی. See Expansive meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is expansive?
Expansive is an adjective.
How do you pronounce expansive?
Expansive is pronounced /ɪkˈspænsɪv/.

Words near expansive in the dictionary

  1. expansionist
  2. expansionistic
  3. expansionists
  4. expansionless
  5. expansions
  6. expansive
  7. expansively
  8. expansiveness
  9. expansivenesses
  10. expansivist
  11. expansivists

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: expansive (page history and authors); expansive (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); expansive (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); expansive (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ବିପୁଳ (Odia) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “expansive.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/expansive. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.