expansion
ex·pan·sion/ɪkˈspænʃən/noun
expansion is spelled E-X-P-A-N-S-I-O-N, 3 syllables: ex·pan·sion. The wrong spelling people search most is exapansion: about 10 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 217 of all searches for the word. Expansion is a noun meaning “An act, process, or instance of expanding”. The plural of expansion is expansions.
How many letters and syllables are in expansion?
| Letters | 9: E-X-P-A-N-S-I-O-N |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3: ex·pan·sion |
| In writing | 35 times per million words; the 2,785th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, exapansion, about 10 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell expansion?
Expansion is spelled E-X-P-A-N-S-I-O-N. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 217 of the searches for expansion in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is expansion?
Expansion appears 35 times per million words in written English, the 2,785th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce expansion?
- /ɪkˈspænʃən/
Expansion has 3 syllables, split ex·pan·sion in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-expansion.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of expansion
- expansions plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does expansion mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
An act, process, or instance of expanding.
The expansion of metals and plastics in response to heat is well understood.
- 2
The fractional change in unit length per unit length per unit temperature change.
Look up the expansion of 1018 steel at stick welding temps and figure out how far this thing's gonna bend once we weld it up.
- 3
A new addition.
My new office is in the expansion behind the main building.
- 4
A product to be used with a previous product.
This expansion requires the original game board.
- 5
That which is expanded; expanse; extended surface.
- 6
The operation of steam in a cylinder after its communication with the boiler has been cut off, by which it continues to exert pressure upon the moving piston.
- 7
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.
Expansion of acronyms is often helpful for nonexpert readers (anacronyms excluded).
- 8
The string of text thus substituted.
The acronym "FNDs" can mean either "functional neurologic disorders" or "focal neurologic deficits", so you'd better use the expansion instead of the acronym, for clarity in this context; readers of this paragraph may not have read, or reme
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Expansion in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | expansion |
| German | Expansion |
| Portuguese | expansão |
| Spanish | expansión , dilatación |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does expansion come from?
Borrowed from French expansion, from Latin expānsiō. By surface analysis, expand + -sion.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).