BREADTH

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does breadth mean? 

• BREADTH (noun)
  The noun BREADTH has 2 senses:

1. the capacity to understand a broad range of topics

2. the extent of something from side to side

  Familiarity information: BREADTH used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BREADTH (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The capacity to understand a broad range of topics

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

breadth; comprehensiveness; largeness

Context example:

a man distinguished by the largeness and scope of his views

Hypernyms ("breadth" is a kind of...):

intelligence (the ability to comprehend; to understand and profit from experience)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "breadth"):

capaciousness; roominess (intellectual breadth)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The extent of something from side to side

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

breadth; width

Hypernyms ("breadth" is a kind of...):

dimension (the magnitude of something in a particular direction (especially length or width or height))

Attribute:

broad; wide (having great (or a certain) extent from one side to the other)

narrow (not wide)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "breadth"):

broadness; wideness (the property of being wide; having great width)

beam ((nautical) breadth amidships)

narrowness (the property of being narrow; having little width)

 Context examples 

The categorization of a person's body frame into small, medium and large based on the measurement of wrist circumference or the breadth of the elbow.

(Body Frame Size, NCI Thesaurus)

A mark that is long relative to its width; a length (straight or curved) without breadth or thickness; the trace of a moving point.

(Line, NCI Thesaurus)

“Such breadth of efficacy of an antimalarial therapy would help accelerate the elimination of malaria.”

(New way to stop falciparum malaria transmission, SciDev.Net)

Indeed, my only wonder was that he had not already been mixed up in this extraordinary case, which was the one topic of conversation through the length and breadth of England.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

So tall was he that his hat actually brushed the cross bar of the doorway, and his breadth seemed to span it across from side to side.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In good truth, the commons throughout the length and breadth of the land were heart-weary of this fine game of chivalry which had been played so long at their expense.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

There was not six inches to spare in the breadth of the road, and every instant I expected to feel the jar of a locking wheel.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The bull-dog missed by a hair's-breadth, and cries of praise went up as White Fang doubled suddenly out of danger in the opposite direction.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Your story, you know, showed such breadth, and vigor, such maturity and depth of thought.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

"I dare say they've not kept you too well at school: Miss Reed is the head and shoulders taller than you are; and Miss Georgiana would make two of you in breadth."

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)