expand

B1 · Intermediate

v. to make a business or an idea cover more areas or include more things.

v. to increase the extent, number, or scope of an enterprise or concept. Transitive or intransitive depending on whether the focus is the agent or the entity growing.

“The company wants to expand its business into other countries next year.”

“The university decided to expand its research department to include a dedicated wing for renewable energy studies.”

B2 · Upper Intermediate Academic · Formal

v. to give more information about something you have already said or written.

v. to elaborate on a point or topic by providing additional details. Usually followed by the preposition 'on'.

“Could you expand on that point? I didn't quite understand the last part.”

“In the second chapter, the author expands on the socio-economic factors that led to the revolution.”

B1 · Intermediate Computing Technical

v. to click on a folder or list to see the items hidden inside it.

v. to reveal the subentries of a hierarchical list, such as a directory tree or a menu.

“Click the plus sign to expand the folder and see all your files.”

“The user interface allows you to expand each category to view the specific metadata associated with the individual records.”

C1 · Advanced Mathematics Technical

v. to rewrite a short math problem as a longer sum of parts.

v. to rewrite an algebraic expression as a sum of terms without parentheses.

“The teacher asked the students to expand the equation on the board.”

“When you expand the binomial expression, you can more easily identify the coefficients for each term.”