widespread

UK/ˌwaɪdˈspɹɛd/US/ˌwaɪdˈspɹɛd/

adjectiveB2Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #8,633 of 15,258mostly written

Widespread means found nearly everywhere across an area or a population. Widespread flooding, widespread support, widespread damage.

It says how far something reaches rather than how deep it goes, which is why widespread support can still be shallow. It is a favourite of forecasts and reports — widespread rain, widespread disruption, widespread concern. Note the difference from common, which is about frequency; and that widespread is written as one word, where the phrase spread wide is two.

Definitions of widespread

1adjectivewidespreadFound nearly everywhere across an area or population.B2
“There was widespread anger when the council closed the swimming pool.”
synonyms: extensive, prevalent

widespread is a quality of extent.

Also accepted in games: common

Where it comes from

Wide plus spread, a plain compound from the eighteenth century. English forms these freely and most of them, like this one, need no explanation.

From wide + spread.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Sharper Adjectives

Practise this word

widespread in the wild

The widespread use of decimal systems is believed to be because humans have ten fingers and ten toes, which people may have used to count by.
10
Heaths are widespread worldwide but are rapidly disappearing and considered a rare habitat in Europe.
Heath
Even more diverse though less widespread heath communities occur in Southern Africa.
Heath
Although a comparatively unusual type of volcano, they are widespread in the world and in geologic history.
Complex volcano
In Cyclades, the souravli is very widespread, especially in the Greek island of Naxos.
Souravli

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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