widening

/ˈwaɪdənɪŋ/adjective, noun, verb

widening is spelled W-I-D-E-N-I-N-G: 8 letters and 3 syllables. It appears 2.8 times per million words in written English, the 16,228th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As an adjective, widening means “Growing wider or farther apart” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in widening?

Letters	8: W-I-D-E-N-I-N-G
Syllables	3 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing	2.8 times per million words; the 16,228th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched	none measured in search

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How common is widening?

Widening appears 2.8 times per million words in written English, the 16,228th most frequent word form in the list.

widening0.0010.010.11101001,00010,000

rarerper million words of written Englishmore common

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce widening?

/ˈwaɪdənɪŋ/

Widening has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-widening.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of widening

widenings plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does widening mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adjective

1
Growing wider or farther apart.
The widening gap between rich and poor creates social problems.

noun

1
The action of the verb widen.

verb

1
present participle and gerund of widen (a form of widen)