Enlarge and widen both make things bigger, in different numbers of directions. To enlarge is to make something bigger overall — every dimension grows, the way a photo enlarges or a room is enlarged. To widen is to make something bigger in one dimension only: wider from side to side. A road widens, eyes widen, a gap widens — the width grows and nothing else. Enlarge scales up; widen spreads sideways.
The difference is how many directions the growth runs in. Enlarge, from en- plus large, means simply 'make large', and it takes the whole thing: an enlarged photograph keeps its proportions because every side grows together. Widen is narrower by design — it is about width, the side-to-side measure, so widening a road adds lanes across without making it longer, and widening a gap opens it out without changing anything else. When a shape grows in every direction it enlarges; when it grows only across, it widens.
enlarge
To enlarge is to make something bigger — most often a concrete thing you can point to: a photograph, a room, a diagram. It comes from Old French enlargier, 'to make large', and it keeps that sense of a size increased deliberately, usually by an outside hand rather than by growth from within. That is the quiet line between it and expand: a business expands of its own momentum, but you enlarge a print. In the phrase 'enlarge on', it means to say more about a point.
widen
To widen is to make or become wider — a road is widened, a river widens, eyes widen in surprise. It is the plain verb built from wide, and it works both ways: you widen something, or something widens on its own. Its great figurative use is the gap: to widen the gap, gulf, or divide between two things — rich and poor, leader and rest — is one of the most useful phrases in essay writing. Where broaden leans toward range and variety, widen keeps to physical width and to distances opening up. Its opposite is narrow.
| enlarge | widen | |
|---|---|---|
| Grows in | all dimensions — overall size | one dimension — width only |
| The picture | the whole thing scales up | the sides move apart |
| Classic objects | photos, rooms, images, diagrams | roads, gaps, rivers, eyes, a lead |
| Keeps proportions? | yes — every side grows together | no — only the width changes |
| From | en- + large, 'make large' | wide — the side-to-side measure |
| Would the other distort it? | — | widening a photo stretches it sideways |
The scaled photo and the spreading road. Enlarge hauls the whole picture bigger from a corner, every side growing together so the image keeps its shape. Widen pushes only the edges apart while the centre holds, adding width and nothing else. Ask how many directions grew. All of them, in proportion: enlarge. Just the side-to-side, the sides moving out: widen. You enlarge a photo to see detail; you widen a road to fit more lanes.
enlarge
- iThe lab enlarged the scan until the hairline crack showed.
- iiThey enlarged the kitchen by taking in the old pantry.
- iiiEnlarge the diagram before you add the labels.
widen
- iThe council plans to widen the bridge to three lanes.
- iiHer eyes widened at the size of the bill.
- iiiThe gap between the leaders widened in the final lap.
Widen carries a busy figurative life that enlarge does not share, all of it built on the side-to-side picture: a widening gap, a widening gulf, a lead that widens, eyes that widen in surprise. Each keeps the sense of two edges moving apart. Enlarge stays literal and proportional, at home with photographs, prints and rooms, plus the formal 'enlarge on a point', meaning to say more about it. How enlarge differs from expand — a deliberate hand against growth in general — and how widen differs from broaden — side-to-side width against range of kinds — are drawn on their own pages in the 'Related' list below.