Is broadening a word

Broadening is a type of semantic change by which the meaning of a word becomes broader or more inclusive than its earlier meaning. Also known as semantic broadening, generalization, expansion, or extension. The opposite process is called semantic narrowing, with a word taking on a more restricted meaning than it had before.

As Victoria Fromkin points out, «When the meaning of a word becomes broader, it means everything it used to mean and more,» (An Introduction to Language, 2013).

Explanations of Broadening

A number of writers, linguists, and others have provided explanations of how broadening came about, as this selection of quotes demonstrates.

Sol Steinmetz

Broadening of meaning . . . occurs when a word with a specific or limited meaning is widened. The broadening process is technically called generalization. An example of generalization is the word business, which originally meant ‘the state of being busy, careworn, or anxious,’ and was broadened to encompass all kinds of work or occupations.

Adrian Akmajian

Sometimes the use of existing words can become broader. For example, the slang word cool was originally part of the professional jargon of jazz musicians and referred to a specific artistic style of jazz (a use that was itself an extension). With the passage of time, the word has come to be applied to almost anything conceivable, not just music; and it no longer refers just to a certain genre or style, but is a general term indicating approval of the thing in question.

Terry Crowley and Claire Bowern

Quite a number of words have undergone semantic broadening in the history of English. The modern English word dog, for example, derives from the earlier form dogge, which was originally a particularly powerful breed of dog that originated in England. The word bird derives from the earlier word bridde, which originally referred only to young birds while still in the nest, but it has now been semantically broadened to refer to any birds at all.

Othe language experts have used examples of specific words or phrases—such as «thing,» «holiday,» or «you guys»—to show how broadening has developed over time.

Andrew Radford

The word thing is a classic example of such broadening. In Old English and Old Norse, this word meant ‘a public assembly.’ In present-day Icelandic, a language with similar Germanic roots to English, it still does. In Modern English, however, it has now been extended so much that it simply means ‘an entity of any kind.’ The word companion provides another example. It used to mean ‘someone who eats bread with you’ (see Italian con ‘with’ plus pain ‘bread’); now it means ‘someone who is with you.’ The word broadcast, which only a couple of centuries ago meant ‘to sow seeds,’ has now, in this technological age, been extended to include the spreading of information on television and radio. Pudding, which today is usually sweet and eaten for dessert, comes from the French word boudin, meaning a sausage made with animal intestines, a meaning retained in English black pudding.

Stephan Gramley and Kurt-Michael Pätzold

A recent generalization or semantic broadening has taken place in the phrase you guys in AmE, which is no longer restricted to men and can refer to mixed company, or even women only. Sell-by date also shows an extended meaning (metaphor) in Kennedy kept Hoover on past his sell-by date.

David Crystal

Extension or Generalization. A lexeme widens its meaning. Numerous examples of this process have occurred in the religious field, where office, doctrine, novice, and many other terms have taken on a more general, secular meaning.

George Yule

An example of broadening of meaning is the change from holy day as a religious feast to the very general break from work called a holiday.

John Holm

Semantic shift represents an extension of a word’s meaning with the loss of its earlier meaning (e.g. pineapple no longer means ‘fir cone’ in standard English). Semantic broadening is such extension without the loss of the original meaning. For example, tea in most English Creoles refers not only to the infusion made from various leaves, but also to any hot drink.

Benjamin W. Forston IV

Thing used to refer to an assembly or council, but in time came to refer to anything. In modern English slang, the same development has been affecting the word shit, whose basic meaning ‘feces’ has broadened to become synonymous with ‘thing’ or ‘stuff’ in some contexts (Don’t touch my shit; I’ve got a lot of shit to take care of this weekend). If a word’s meaning becomes so vague that one is hard-pressed to ascribe any specific meaning to it anymore, it is said to have undergone bleaching. Thing and shit above are both good examples. When a word’s meaning is broadened so that it loses its status as a full-content lexeme and becomes either a function word or an affix, it is said to undergo grammaticalization.

5.1. Broadening (or Generalisation) of Meaning. Narrowing (or Specialisation) of Meaning

Sometimes, the process of
transference may result in a considerable change in range of meaning.
For instance, the verb to
arrive (French
borrowing) began its life in English in the narrow meaning “to come
to shore, to land”. In Modern English it has greatly widened its
combinability and developed the general meaning “to come” (e.g.
to arrive
in a village, town, city, country, at a hotel, hostel, college,
theatre, place, etc.).
The meaning developed through transference based on contiguity (the
concept of coming somewhere is the same for both meanings), but the
range of the second meaning is much broader.

Extension (widening of
meaning) is
the extension of semantic capacity of a word, i.e. the expansion of
polysemy in the course of its historical development, e.g. manuscript
originally
“smth hand-written”.

Another example of the
broadening of meaning is pipe.
Its
earliest recorded meaning was “a musical wind instrument”.
Nowadays it can denote any hollow oblong cylindrical body (e. g.
water
pipes). This
meaning developed through transference based on the similarity of
shape (pipe as a musical instrument is also a hollow oblong
cylindrical object) which finally led to a considerable broadening of
the range of meaning.

The word bird
changed
its meaning from “the young of a bird’ to its modern meaning
through transference based on contiguity (the association is
obvious). The second meaning is broader and more general.

It is interesting to trace
the history of the word girl
as an
example of the changes in the range of meaning in the course of the
semantic development of a word.

In Middle English it had the
meaning of “a small child of either sex’. Then the word underwent
the process of transference based on contiguity and developed the
meaning of “a small child of the female sex”, so that the range
of meaning was somewhat narrowed. In its further semantic development
the word gradually broadened its range of meaning. At first it came
to denote not only a female child but, also, a young unmarried woman,
later, any young woman, and in modern colloquial English it is
practically synonymous to the noun woman
(e.g. The
old girl must be at least seventy), so
that its range of meaning is quite broad. Cf. UA
стріла
n.
→
стріляти
v originally
meant пускати
стрілу з лука,
the word
gradually broadened its range of meaning
to стріляти
із
будь-якої зброї, що вражає на відстані
(з гвинтівки, пістолета чи пушки).

Narrowing of meaning is
the restriction of the semantic capacity of a word in the historical
development, e.g. in
Old English the word (ОЕ
hlǽfdize)
denoted the mistress of the house, i. e. any married woman. Later, a
new meaning developed which was much narrower in range: “the wife
or daughter of a baronet” (aristocratic title). In Modern English
the word lady
can be
applied to any woman, so that its range of meaning is even broader
than that of the OE hlǽfdize.
In Modern English the difference between girl
and lady
in the
meaning of woman
is that
the first is used in colloquial style and sounds familiar whereas the
second is more formal and polite.

Here are some more examples
of narrowing of meaning:

Deer: any
beast →
a certain kind of beast

Meat: any
food → a
certain food product

Boy:
any young person of the male sex
→ servant of
the male sex

It should be pointed out
once more that in all these words the second meaning developed
through transference based on contiguity, and that when we speak of
them as examples of narrowing of meaning we simply imply that the
range of the second meaning is more narrow than that of the original
meaning.

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расширять, расширяться

существительное

- расширение
- мед. дилатация

Словосочетания

dipole-dipole coupling broadening — дипольное уширение  
emission spectrum broadening — расширение спектра излучения  
emission-spectrum broadening — расширение спектра излучения  
exchange broadening — обменное уширение  
foreign-gas broadening — примесное уширение  
homogeneous broadening — однородное уширение  
hyperfine broadening — сверхтонкое уширение  
hyperfine interaction broadening — сверхтонкое уширение  
impact broadening — уширение в результате соударений частиц; столкновительное уширение  
inhomogeneous applied magnetic field broadening — уширение за счёт неоднородности поля подмагничивания  

Примеры с переводом

Возможные однокоренные слова

Definition and Examples of Broadening in English Broadening is a type of semantic change by which the meaning of a word becomes broader or more inclusive than its earlier meaning. Also known as semantic broadening, generalization, expansion, or extension. The opposite process is called semantic narrowing, with a word taking on a more restricted meaning than it had before. As Victoria Fromkin points out, When the meaning of a word becomes broader, it means everything it used to mean and more (An Introduction to Language, 2013). Examples and Observations Broadening of meaning . . . occurs when a word with a specific or limited meaning is widened. The broadening process is technically called generalization. An example of generalization is the word business, which originally meant the state of being busy, careworn, or anxious, and was broadened to encompass all kinds of work or occupations.(Sol Steinmetz, Semantic Antics: How and Why Words Change Meaning. Random House, 2008)Cool: Sometimes the use of existing words can become broader. For example, the slang word cool was originally part of the professional jargon of jazz musicians and referred to a specific artistic style of jazz (a use that was itself an extension). With the passage of time, the word has come to be applied to almost anything conceivable, not just music; and it no longer refers just to a certain genre or style, but is a general term indicating approval of the thing in question.(Adrian Akmajian, Richard Demers, Ann Farmer, and Robert Harnish, Linguistics: An Introductio n to Language and Communication. The MIT Press, 2001) Dog and Bird: Quite a number of words have undergone semantic broadening in the history of English. The modern English word dog, for example, derives from the earlier form dogge, which was originally a particularly powerful breed of dog that originated in England. The word bird derives from the earlier word bridde, which originally referred only to young birds while still in the nest, but it has now been semantically broadened to refer to any birds at all.(Terry Crowley and Claire Bowern, An Introduction to Historical Linguistics, 4th ed. Oxford University Press, 2010)Thing, Companion, Broadcast, and Pudding: The word thing is a classic example of such broadening. In Old English and Old Norse, this word meant a public assembly. In present-day Icelandic, a language with similar Germanic roots to English, it still does. In Modern English, however, it has now been extended so much that it simply means an entity of any kind. The word companion provides another example. It used to mean so meone who eats bread with you (see Italian con  with plus pain  bread); now it means someone who is with you. The word broadcast, which only a couple of centuries ago meant to sow seeds, has now, in this technological age, been extended to include the spreading of information on television and radio. Pudding, which today is usually sweet and eaten for dessert, comes from the French word boudin, meaning a sausage made with animal intestines, a meaning retained in English black pudding.(Andrew Radford,  et al.,  Linguistics: An Introduction, 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2009) You Guys and Sell-by Date: A recent generalization or  semantic broadening  has taken place in the phrase you guys in AmE, which is no  longer restricted to men and can refer to mixed company, or even women only. Sell-by date also shows an extended meaning (metaphor) in Kennedy kept Hoover on past his sell-by date.(Stephan Gramley and Kurt-Michael Ptzold,A Survey of Modern English, 2nd ed. Routledge, 2004)Religious Terms: — Extension or Generalization. A lexeme widens its meaning. Numerous examples of this process have occurred in the religious field, where office, doctrine, novice, and many other terms have taken on a more general, secular meaning.(David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge University Press, 2003)- An example of broadening of meaning is the change from holy day as a religious feast to the very general break from work called a holiday.(George Yule, The Study of Language, 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2006)Semantic Shift a nd Semantic Broadening: Semantic shift represents an extension of a words meaning with the loss of its earlier meaning (e.g. pineapple no longer means fir cone in standard English).  Semantic broadening  is such extension without the loss of the original meaning. For example,  tea in most English Creoles  refers not only to the infusion made from various leaves, but also to any hot drink.(John Holm,  An Introduction to Pidgins and Creoles. Cambridge University Press, 2000) Bleaching and Grammaticalization: Thing used to refer to an assembly or council, but in time came to refer to anything. In modern English slang, the same development has been affecting the word shit, whose basic meaning feces has broadened to become synonymous with thing or stuff in some contexts (Dont touch my shit; Ive got a lot of shit to take care of this weekend). If a words meaning becomes so vague that one is hard-pressed to ascribe any specific meaning to it anymore, it is said to have undergone bleaching. Thing and shit above are both good examples. When a words meaning is broadened so that it loses its status as a full-content lexeme and becomes either a function word or an affix, it is said to undergo grammaticalization.(Benjamin W. Forston IV, An Approach to Semantic Change. The Handbook of Historical Linguistics, ed. by Brian D. Joseph and Richard D. Janda. Wiley-Blackwell, 2003)

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