Broadnesses

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The quality or state of being wide or expansive in dimensions
2. the condition of having a large and extensive range or scope
3. a measure of the extent or width of something across multiple variables or dimensions

Etymology: "Broadnesses" is simply the plural of "broadness," so the word itself is a plain formation: the adjective "broad" with the suffix "-ness," which turns a quality into a noun. Plurals of abstract nouns like this are less common, and they usually appear when several distinct instances or degrees of breadth are being compared. "Broadness" goes back to Old English "brādnes" and "brǣdnys," meaning breadth, greatness, extent, or surface, and the Old English sense of extent was about physical width. The word passed into Middle English as "brodnes" (also spelled "brednysse"), and its meaning stretched from literal width toward the wider idea of scope that it carries today.