Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To speak or write at length: expatiated on the subject until everyone was bored.
- v. To wander freely.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To move at large; rove without prescribed limits; wander without restraint.
- To enlarge in discourse or writing; be copious in argument or discussion: with on or upon.
- To allow to range at large; give free exercise to; expand; broaden.
Wiktionary
- v. To range at large, or without restraint.
- v. To write or speak at length; to be copious in argument or discussion, to descant.
- v. obsolete To expand; to spread; to extend; to diffuse; to broaden.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To range at large, or without restraint.
- v. To enlarge in discourse or writing; to be copious in argument or discussion; to descant.
- v. To expand; to spread; to extend; to diffuse; to broaden.
WordNet 3.0
- v. add details, as to an account or idea; clarify the meaning of and discourse in a learned way, usually in writing
Etymologies
- From the participle stem of Latin expatiari, from ex- + spatiari ("walk about"). (Wiktionary)
- Latin expatiārī, expatiāt- : ex-, ex- + spatiārī, to spread (from spatium, space). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Godwin offers a glowing description of this future state, where all people share equally in the "bounties of nature" and are free to "expatiate" in the realms of intellectual discovery:”
“And why would we need a critic to expatiate on his/her emotional reactions in this way?”
“Really there is no need to expatiate upon the change, except to point out that social media by its very nature engages this cultural shift.”
The Huffington Post: Mayhill Fowler: Taking the Me From Social Media
“Listening to him expatiate on his role, he sometimes sounds like a man trying to shadow all the big offices of state.”
The Guardian: Nick Clegg interview: 'We're not going to do it the way we did in the 80s'
“You want to hear me expatiate on the plethora of Clintonians filling the Obama Administration?”
“To expatiate on the “binary collapse” and “epistemological flippage” brought about by “the erosion of the once-secure border distinction between the private and public spheres.””
“I guess they think it would just be "cool" if a woman were in the oval office and it would expatiate some of their sexist guilt at the same time.”
Clinton 'Advisor': Obama Is For People Who Want "Imaginary Hip Black Friend"
“Having given you this general idea and description of the law of nations; need I expatiate on its dignity and importance?”
“If Edgar thought his daughter of a disposition with which his own could not sympathise, it were vain to expatiate upon her virtues or her sweetness; that one doubt previously taken might mar their assimilating efficacy.”
“Then would I salute the strangers courteously, and expatiate to their astonished minds upon crypts and chancels, and naves, arches, Gothic and Saxon architraves, mullions and flying buttresses.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘expatiate’.
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phrontistery - e
from phrontistery.info
eagre, earing, earwig, easement, eau-de-nil, ebberman, ebeneous, ?boulement, ebriection, ?brillade, ebrious, ebullioscope and 616 more...
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GRE Barron's 800
abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abject, abjure, abscission, abscond, abstemious, abstinence, abysmal, accretion and 787 more...
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words 1
Traduce, Ramify, precipitous, rapture, adumbrate, knell, smolder, vagary, choleric, sibylline, hypocritical, jejune and 185 more...
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Jesse's random
bathos, dragoman, tessellated, escutcheon, eikon, mondaine, basilisk, ciborium, rubric, machicolation, jet, defalcation and 198 more...
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EN - eloquence in public speaking
Key words from "The Training of a Public Speaker" by Grenville Kleiser (New York and London, 1920)
beget, imago, approbation, orator, peroration, Cicero, eloquence, elocution, rhetoric, premeditate, plead, Isocrates and 264 more...
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(1st_wk_150)-Dec_5_2012
voracious, indiscriminate, eminent, steeped, replete, abound, technology, prognosticate, automaton, matron, paradox, realm and 297 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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cicatrix
scar tissue
minatory, naira, Cluniac, embracive, prolix, hierophant, timorous, adduce, veracious, dysphoric, sang-froid, vitiate and 505 more...
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FUN - Jeeves and Wooster - Jeeves
"Jeevesisms" as heard from the valet Jeeves in P.G. Wodehouse's "Jeeves and Wooster" stories.
abject, attire, boudoir, be agog to learn, breach of peace, companionship of ..., contract an engag..., correct orifice, determined temper..., edifice, endeavor to ascer..., expatiate and 46 more...
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New Words
idiopathic, quidditas, cloacal, peregrination, cyclamen, expatiate, pedantic, salonniere, manque, pelagic, exogenous, pellucid and 83 more...
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EN - high brow
abrogate, abstemious, abstract of law, alderman, apocryphal, apostasy, apoplexy, apotheosis, apposite, aver, decorous, apprehensive and 51 more...
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Magoosh GRE
its a list of words borrowed from Magoosh GRE blog ,an indispensable resource for GRE test takers.
inimitable, exiguity, myriad, cornucopia, surfeit, glut, deluge, opaque, pellucid, grandiloquent, turgid, gadfly and 106 more...
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The Whiteness of the Whale
Words in Melville's "Moby Dick"
grapnels, spile, pea coffee, farrago, grego, bosky, bombazine, brevet, cenotaph, cupidity, kelson, obliquity and 164 more...
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CCW
Commonly Confused Words
wreath, wreathe, titillate, titivate, proscribe, prescribe, pedal, peddle, mettle, metal, palette, palate and 132 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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GRE
trope, surreptitious, tenet, insular, munificent, exegesis, limpid, acerbic, litany, cupidity, restive, protract and 260 more...
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