expatiate
verb
Thomas Hardy
Did you know?
The Latin antecedent of "expatiate" is "exspatiari," which combines the prefix ex- ("out of") with "spatiari" ("to take a walk"), itself from "spatium" ("space" or "course"). Exspatiari means "to wander from a course" and, in the figurative sense, "to digress." But when English speakers began using "expatiate" in 1538, we took "wander" as simply "to move about freely." In a similar digression from the original Latin, we began using "expatiate" in a figurative sense of "to speak at length." That's the sense of the word most often used these days, usually in combination with "on" or "upon."
Examples of expatiate in a Sentence
Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 25 July 2024
Ostensibly, further studies are encouraged to expatiate this understanding.
—Amber Smith, Discover Magazine, 7 Jan. 2024
Ostensibly, further studies are encouraged to expatiate this understanding.
—Amber Smith, Discover Magazine, 15 Dec. 2022
With wit and elan to spare, Greene expatiates on the intrigue that ensues when David Sparsholt, an engineering student with a fiancée, Connie, and a plan to join the Royal Air Force, arrives at Oxford in 1940.
—Priscilla Gilman, BostonGlobe.com, 9 Mar. 2018
Alex Tizon’s essay can be read not simply as an attempt to confess a crime and expatiate his family’s guilt.
—Jean M. Twenge, The Atlantic, 8 Aug. 2017
Tizon’s essay can be read not simply as an attempt to confess a crime and expatiate his family’s guilt.
—Vicente Rafael, The Atlantic, 31 May 2017
Cite this Entry
“Expatiate.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/expatiate. Accessed 3 Jul. 2025.
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expatiate
verb
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