Meaning of spread in English

spread

verb [ I or T ]

/spred/ us

/spred/

spread

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[ I or T ]

to cover or reach a wider or increasing area, or to make something do this:

The fire spread very rapidly because of the strong wind.

spread to It started off as cancer of the liver but it spread to other areas of the body.

Student artwork can't cover more than 20% of a wall because it could help spread a fire into the ceiling.

[ I or T ]

to affect more and more places, people, or things, or to make something do this:

Discontent among junior ranks was rapidly spreading.

If disease is allowed to spread, it will cause widespread devastation.

The virus is spread through contact with blood and other body fluids.

They would then be free to impose their will and spread their totalitarian ideology.

be spread somewhere

to exist in many different places:

be spread across The redundancies are spread across the banking and building industries.

[ T ]

to open something that has been folded or make something flat, so it covers a larger area :

spread something out We spread the picnic rug out on the ground and sat down to eat.

The peacock spread out its wings.

spread something over something To keep each grain of rice separate, spread a wet cloth over the cooked rice vessel and cover it with a plate for 10 minutes.

[ T ]

to stretch your arms, legs, fingers, or toes as far away from each other as possible:

He spread his arms in a grand gesture.

Flex your foot and spread your toes wide.

[ T ]

to arrange or put things all over a surface, usually in a thin layer or with spaces in between them :

spread something (out) She spread the papers (out ) on a big table in the conference room.

He spread coffee beans over a plastic sheet to dry in the sun.

[ I or T ]

to tell something to a lot of people, or to be told to a lot of people:

Are you spreading gossip/rumours again?

He said a challenger needs campaign cash to spread the message about why an incumbent needs to be replaced.

The gossip spread like wildfire.

[ T ]

to divide something between several or many people:

spread something between someone If we spread the work between us, it won't seem so bad.

spread something amongst someone/something I could have spread the money amongst my 15 grandkids.

[ I or T ]

to put a soft substance on a surface and make it cover it, or to be able to be put on a surface in this way:

She spread her toast with a thick layer of butter./She spread a thick layer of butter on her toast.

It's a special sort of butter that spreads easily even when cold.

The icing is nice and white and spreads well.

Thesaurus: synonyms, antonyms, and examples

to put something over someone or something

coverI covered her with a blanket to keep her warm.
spreadI spread peanut butter on my bread.
smother something in/with somethingThe chicken was absolutely smothered in butter sauce.
coatCoat the cherries in chocolate.
plasterHis laptop cover was completely plastered with stickers.
cakeHis shoes were caked in mud.

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[ I ]

to cover a large area:

spread (out) The suburbs spread (out) for miles to either side of the city.

[ I ]

(of a smile) to appear on someone's face, until it is a big smile:

Slowly a smile spread across her face.

As Greene's head popped up, a huge grin spread over his face.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Spreading and scattering

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You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Placing and positioning an object

Stretching the body

Announcing, informing & stating

Sharing

Preparing food

Laughing and smiling

Idioms

spread your wings
spread the word
spread yourself too thin

Phrasal verbs

spread out

spread something over something

spread

noun

/spred/ us

/spred/

spread noun (ACT OF SPREADING)

B2 [ S ]

the development or growth of something so that it covers a larger area or affects a larger number of people:

The spread of the disease in the last few years has been alarming.

[ S ]

the act of spreading knowledge, information, etc. to more and more people :

The web allows the rapid spread of information.

The feedback system enables the spread of best practice.

More examplesFewer examples

The government is trying to allay public fears about the spread of the disease.
The treatment has so far done little to arrest the spread of the cancer.
The mountains acted as a natural barrier to the spread of the disease.
The Swedes are not alone in finding their language under pressure from the ubiquitous spread of English.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Spreading and scattering

See more results »

spread noun (RANGE)

[ S ]

the area or range covered by something:

wide spread The survey found a wide spread of opinion over the proposed new building.

broad spread Few other corporate roles require such a broad spread of knowledge and experience.

More examplesFewer examples

The course includes not only philosophy and history but a broad spread of modern European languages and literature.
There is a wide spread of ages among the volunteers.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Range and limits

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spread noun (IN NEWSPAPER)

[ C ]

a large article or advertisement covering one or more pages in a newspaper or magazine:

spread on The magazine recently ran a spread on Oregon beaches, mountains, hotels and restaurants.

double-page spread There's a double-page spread on the latest fashions.

More examplesFewer examples

Food and Wine did a spread on caviar around Christmas.
The advertising manager had written to confirm the booking of a double-page spread in the colour supplement for six successive weeks.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Newspapers & magazines: headlines & features

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spread noun (SOFT FOOD)

[ C or U ]

a soft food for putting on bread and biscuits:

cheese/chocolate/fish spread

There's bread and various spreads for tea.

Diane Macdonald/Moment Open/GettyImages

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Jams & spreads

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spread noun (LAND)

[ C ] US

a ranch or other large area of land or water

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Farms & ranches

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spread noun (MEAL)

[ C ] UK old-fashioned or US

a meal, especially one for a special occasion with a lot of different dishes arranged on a table:

lay on a spread Sheila laid on (= made) a magnificent spread for us.

Synonyms

banquet

feast (FOOD)

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Meals & parts of meals

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spread noun (DIFFERENCE)

[ C ]

the difference between two amounts, such as two prices or interest rates:

The issue was priced at a spread of 115 basis points above Treasury bonds.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Different and difference

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(Definition of spread from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

spread | American Dictionary

spread

verb [ I/T ]

/spred/

spread verb [I/T] (COVER)

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past tense and past participle spread

to cover or cause something to cover an object or an area:

[ T ] Pianist Eubie Blake could spread his fingers over 20 keys.

[ M ] She spread out the tablecloth.

[ I ] I had toast spread with strawberry jam.

[ I ] A strange look spread over his face.

spread verb [I/T] (MOVE)

to move from one place to another, or to cause something to move or be communicated:

[ I ] The flames quickly spread to the next room.

[ I ] Obesity is spreading in many countries.

[ I ] Doctors fear the cancer may spread to other organs.

[ T ] She’s been spreading lies about him.

[ T ] Neighbors have been spreading the word (= communicating information) about the proposed building project.

Idiom

spread yourself (too) thin

Phrasal verbs

spread something out (over something)

spread out

spread

noun

/spred/

spread noun (MOVEMENT)

[ U ]

the process of moving to cover a larger area or to affect a larger number of people:

Jazz records fostered the spread of American culture.

More should be done to stop the spread of this disease.

spread noun (COVER)

[ C ]

A spread is a cover for a bed.

[ C ]

A spread is also a soft food put on bread or other food:

a cheese spread

[ C ]

A spread is also a meal, esp. one with a lot of different foods arranged on a table:

This is quite a spread.

(Definition of spread from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

spread | Business English

spread

noun

/spred/ us

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[ C ] STOCK MARKET, FINANCE

the difference between a trader’s buying price and selling price for particular shares, currencies, etc.

See also

agio

bid-offer spread

[ C ] FINANCE

the difference between two interest rates :

a spread of sth The issue was priced at a spread of 115 basis points above Treasury bonds.

[ S ]

a number of different things or people:

If you do not need immediate access to your money, why not diversify into a wider spread of investments?

a geographic/demographic spread

[ S or U ]

an increase in effect or influence, so that something affects more people or places:

the spread of sth Corporations have a crucial influence on the global spread of a homogenized culture.

[ S ]

the different areas or numbers of people that are affected by something:

Given the size and spread of the American economy, the whole world has an economic interest in the US.

[ C ] MARKETING, COMMUNICATIONS

an advertisement or article in a newspaper or magazine that covers two pages that are opposite each other:

a double-page spread

a spread on sth A magazine for Japanese businesspeople recently did a spread on the resort.

Examples of spread

spread

Second, non-mobilized items receive spreading activation during mobilization.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In addition, it was expected that experimental subjects would allocate less time to non-mobilized same-category items as a result of spreading activation during mobilization.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Are we to protect them from the social effects of spreading industry about the countryside?

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Today there are other causes for a decline but when it happens unemployment spreads in the same way, from one industry to another.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In fact, this was a time that religion formalized new doctrines and rites, its dynamism spreading its influence far and wide.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Hence, there should be bi-directional activation spreading from concepts to lemmas (in production) and from lemmas to concepts (in perception), that is, full feedback.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The structure of their model is that of a network displaying the characteristics of both spreading activation and lateral inhibition.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Raised variants of / / are apparently spreading in a linguistically ordered way, with" long" environments affected first.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In adult plants the infection generally spreads slowly, but to such an extent that they can eventually die.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The group would visit each member's farm and do whatever work needed to be done: threshing, spreading manure and planting.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In their zeal to protect the city against the new outbreak, the authorities targeted the unsanitary subjects they suspected of spreading the disease.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The mesoderm spreads laterally and anteriorly between the epiblast and visceral endoderm to form a complete intermediate layer in the embryonic region.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Probably these two phenomena are not qualitatively different, but flooding is much more drastic than spreading and it is convenient to have separate terms.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The mathematical content of the two identities that we shall now derive is that spreading is the adjoint of interpolation.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In this model, maintenance of activated representations is achieved by two parameters of spreading activation, its strength and its duration.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

See all examples of spread

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

Collocations with spread

spread

These are words often used in combination with spread.

Click on a collocation to see more examples of it.

chocolate spread

Pickles, and sweet toppings such as jam, banana, or chocolate spread are other examples.

From

Wikipedia

This example is from Wikipedia and may be reused under a CC BY-SA license.

geographic spread

According to the dynamics of geographic spread, the main mechanism of transmission appeared to be through contamination of water and food.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

geographical spread

These can be discounted to some degree through the stratigraphical and geographical spread of measurements from individual units.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

See all collocations with spread

What is the pronunciation of spread?

Translations of spread

in Chinese (Traditional)

（使）展開，（使）鋪開, （使）蔓延，（使）擴散, 覆蓋範圍…

in Chinese (Simplified)

（使）展开，（使）铺开, （使）蔓延，（使）扩散, 覆盖范围…

in Spanish

extender, extenderse, esparcir…

in Portuguese

espalhar, propagar, estender…

in more languages

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in Italian

फैलाव, विस्तार…

～を広げる, 広げる, （被害を）拡大させる…

zamana yaymak, yayılma, dağılmak…

(s’)étendre, (se) propager, transmettre…

escampar, propagar(-se), untar…

smeren, (zich) verspreiden, spreiden…

ஏதாவது வளர்ச்சி அல்லது வளர்ச்சி அதனால் அது ஒரு பெரிய பகுதியை உள்ளடக்கியது அல்லது அதிக எண்ணிக்கையிலான மக்களை பாதிக்கிறது, மேலும் மேலும் மக்களுக்காக அறிவு, தகவல் போன்றவற்றைப் பரப்பும் செயல்…

(प्रायः किसी चीज़ का बहुत लोगों के बीच या बड़े क्षेत्र में) फैल जाना, (अधिक लोगों के बीच ज्ञान, सूचना आदि का) प्रसार…

ફેલાવો, વધુ લોકોમાં જ્ઞાન, માહિતી વગેરેનો ફેલાવો…

smøre, sprede, sprede sig…

breda (sprida) ut, breda ut på (över), sprida [sig]…

menyapukan, melapisi, menyebarkan…

streichen, bestreichen, verbreiten…