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expansion

noun

Simple meaning

An increase in the market value of an economy over time.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

ihkspanshuhn

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ɪksˈpænʃən

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. An act, process, or instance of expanding.

  2. That which is expanded; expanse; extended surface.

  3. building

    A new addition.

  4. A function expressed as a sum or product of terms

    “The expansion of (a+b)^2 is a^2 + 2ab + b^2.”

  5. A product to be used with a previous product.

  6. The replacement of a short name (e.g., acronym, initialism, alphanumeric symbol, abbreviation) with the longer name that is synonymous with it, as when spelling out acronyms to ensure clarity for a general audience.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B1 · Intermediate
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: An act, process, or instance of expanding.

Used this way, expansion is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

thermal expansionseries expansionrapid expansioneconomic expansionindustrial expansiongreat expansionterritorial expansioncolonial expansion

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • expansion bitnounCompound term

    A bit with a cutting blade that can be adjusted to different sizes.

  • expansion boltnounCompound term

    A bolt that has an attachment that expands as the bolt is driven into a surface.

  • expansion slotnounCompound term

    A socket in a microcomputer that will accept a plug-in circuit board.

  • coefficient of expansionnounCompound term

    The fractional change in length or area or volume per unit change in temperature at a given constant pressure.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: act or process or or instance of expanding

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.