喜樂美語

核心畫面

You can think of widen as taking the two edges of something and pushing them further apart. A road that was one lane becomes two; a gap in a fence that a hand could pass through becomes one a body can get through. The thing itself doesn't move — its two sides simply move away from each other, so the space between them grows.

抓住一個東西的兩邊，把它們往外推開。原本一線道的路拓成兩線道，原本只伸得進一隻手的籬笆縫，變成整個人鑽得過去。東西本…更多收起抓住一個東西的兩邊，把它們往外推開。原本一線道的路拓成兩線道，原本只伸得進一隻手的籬笆縫，變成整個人鑽得過去。東西本身沒有跑掉，只是它的兩側彼此拉遠了，中間的距離就長出來。注意 wide 是形容詞「寬的」，加上 -en 就變成動詞「變寬／使變寬」——而且它兩邊都能用：路自己 widens，工人也可以 widen the road。

Two branches

實際的寬度變大

這一族就是核心畫面本身：看得見、量得出來的兩邊往外撐開。

widen · verb · B1

To become wider, or to make something such as a road, path, or opening wider than it was before.

變寬；加寬

範圍或差距變大

路的兩側往外推 → 抽象事物的「兩端」往外推：同一個動作，只是被推開的不是柏油，而是差距、範圍或選項。

widen (gap, scope) · verb · B2

To become larger in degree, amount, or range, or to make something do this — for example a gap between two amounts, or the range of things a search, discussion, or choice covers.

擴大；拉大

原始詞典資料6 筆記錄

以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。

Widenname

  • 1

    A surname from Swedish.

widenverb/ˈwaɪdn̩/

  • 1

    To become wide or wider.

    • His eyes widened as her negligee fell to the floor.
  • 2

    To make wide or wider.

    • The widening works include the rebuilding of the skew bridge near Northwood to take four tracks, and to enable the Rickmansworth Road to be widened to 60 ft.; […].
    • But he still saw his side produce a rousing display which owed much to their lauded prowess from set-pieces, despite Uefa regulations meaning the pitch had to be widened and, in the process, the run-up area for Delap's long throws reduced.
  • 3

    To let out clothes to a larger size.

    • She widened his trousers for him.
  • 4

    To broaden or extend in scope or range.

    • The police widened their enquiries.
    • While the primary focus of the Sexual Orientation Committee had been to lobby for gay rights legislation, the new Task Force hopes to widen its activities. The Task Force ― in addition to lobbying — hopes to function as an "umbrella organization," facilitating communication between the state's many gay groups.
  • 5

    computingengineeringmathematicsTo convert to a data type that can hold a larger number of distinct values.

    • to widen a short variable to an int variable

資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。