Happening in, or reaching, every part of a country. A countrywide search, a countrywide strike, prices rising countrywide.

It works two ways with no change in form. As an adjective it sits in front of a noun: a countrywide campaign. As an adverb it comes after the verb: the shops closed countrywide. That double life is normal for -wide words, and it trips learners up because most English words don't do both.

Nationwide is the far more common word — probably ten times more common — and means the same thing. So why does countrywide exist? Two small reasons. It's plainer, more neutral: nationwide can carry a flag with it, a feeling of one people, while countrywide just means the geography. And it's handy when "nation" would be politically awkward — writers covering places where people disagree about whether they are one nation often prefer countrywide. In everyday Taiwan English, though, you'll meet nationwide almost every time.

British writing uses countrywide slightly more than American writing does. Written as one word — countrywide, no hyphen.