Other forms: expanses
An expanse is a wide continuous stretch of something. Nothing breaking it up as far as you can see.
The word wants scale and emptiness together, which is why it suits sea, sky, desert, snow and moorland: a vast expanse of water, an empty expanse of sand. It takes of. Interiors borrow it for large plain surfaces, as in an expanse of white wall. It is a close relative of expand and expansive, and expansive describes a person who is open and generous with words.
1nounexpanseA wide unbroken area of something.
“Below them lay a grey expanse of sea.”
Latin
expansum
English, today
expanse
From Latin expansum, from expandō.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA