spread out
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Analytic form of earlier outspread.
Pronunciation
[edit]Audio (General Australian): (file)
Verb
[edit]spread out (third-person singular simple present spreads out, present participle spreading out, simple past and past participle spread out)
- (idiomatic, intransitive) Become further apart.
- The police spread out to search a wider area.
- (idiomatic, transitive) To place items further apart.
- Spread the cards out and then turn two of them over at random.
Usage notes
[edit]In the transitive sense 2, the object may appear before or after the particle. If the object is a pronoun, then it must be before the particle.
Translations
[edit]to become further apart
to place items further apart
open out, especially over a flat surface, as something rolled or folded
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
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Adjective
[edit]spread out (comparative more spread out, superlative most spread out)
- Far apart, not close to each other - far apart, extended over an expanse of space or time.
- Synonyms: spaced out, thin; see also Thesaurus:diffuse
- 2000, Ray Kurzweil, The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence, →ISBN:
- In other words, space is very empty, and particles are very spread out.
- 2007, Carolyn C. Wise, Stephanie Hauser, The Business School Buzz Book, →ISBN, page 90:
- It is extremely time-consuming to use public transportation and the restaurants and dining are very spread out.
- 2014, William W. Johnstone, Warriors from the Ashes, →ISBN:
- The plague is spread person to person, so if the people are very spread out, fewer of them will come in contact with those afflected by the plague.
- Covering a wide area of space or long period of time.
- Synonym: widespread
- 2006, Michael Clancy, Anna Clancy, A User's Guide to Saskatchewan Parks, →ISBN, page 69:
- The park is very spread out, with two core areas approximately 1.5 km apart, and the trailer dump station almost 2 km away near the park entrance.
- 2007, Yukio Noguchi, James M. Poterba, Housing Markets in the United States and Japan, →ISBN, page 133:
- As a result, U.S. cities have become very spread out and cover a great deal of land.
- 2009, Frederick J. Gravetter, Larry B. Wallnau, Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences, →ISBN, page 285:
- The t distribution tends to be flatter and more spread out, whereas the normal z distribution has more of a central peak.
- 2011, Cat Schmidt, Peripheral Vision, →ISBN, page 1:
- If you live in or around Houston you cannot survive without wheels. The city is very spread out and continues to sprawl outward and consume more and more real estate.
Translations
[edit]far apart