- Expansion is defined as the act of getting bigger or something added onto something else.
An example of an expansion is an extra three rooms built onto a house.
- an expanding or being expanded; enlargement; dilation
- an expanded thing or part
- the amount, degree, or extent of expansion
- a development or full treatment, as of a topic
- the process or result of working out or giving the full form of a contraction, equation, etc.
- Mech. the expanding in volume of steam in the cylinder of a steam engine after cutoff, or of gas in the cylinder of an internal-combustion engine after explosion
Origin of expansionLate Latin expansio ; from Classical Latin expansus: see expanse
- a. The act or process of expanding: the new nation's expansion westward.b. The state of being expanded.
- a. An expanded part: an expansion of a river.b. A product of expanding: a book that is an expansion of the author's PhD thesis.
- The extent or amount by which something has expanded.
- Mathematics a. A quantity written in an extended form, such as in a sum or product of terms.b. The process of obtaining this form.
- An expanse.
- A period of increased economic or business activity.
(countable and uncountable, plural expansions)
- The act or process of expanding.
- The expansion of metals and plastics in response to heat is well understood.
- The fractional change in unit length per unit length per unit temperature change.
- A new addition.
- My new office is in the expansion behind the main building.
- A product to be used with a previous product.
- This expansion requires the original game board.
- That which is expanded; expanse; extended surface.
- (act of expanding): contraction