broaden, v.
(ˈbrɔːd(ə)n)
[f. broad a. + -en1. Johnson says ‘I know not whether this word occurs, but in the following passage’, viz. that from Thomson in sense 1. But the same author had used broadened in the trans. sense.]
1. intr. To become broad or broader; to widen. Also with out.
| 1727 Thomson Summer 1600 Low walks the sun, and broadens by degrees, Just o'er the verge of day. 1824 Byron Juan xvi. lxxxviii, Smiles around Broadening to grins. 1832 Tennyson ‘You ask me why’ iii, Where Freedom broadens slowly down From precedent to precedent. 1888 Mrs. H. Ward R. Elsmere I. iii. 79 Her round comfortable face brightened and broadened out into a beaming smile. 1894 B. Harraden In Varying Moods vii, The narrow, dull, everyday existence broadened out into many interesting possibilities. |
2. trans. To make broad or broader; to widen, dilate. lit. and fig.
| 1726 [see broadened]. 1792 Roberts Looker-on (1794) I. 321 A constitution..so broadened, by experience, to the compass of our wants and the demands of our nature. 1861 A. Beresford-Hope Eng. Cathedr. 19th C. vi. 214 For this object the nave should be proportionably broadened. 1867 in E. B. Denison Life Bp. Lonsdale (1868) 240 He was a High Churchman of the old school, broadened by experience. 1871 Blackie Four Phases i. 74 To broaden his conception of morality and religion. |