Literary notes about Expansive (AI summary)
The term expansive is used in literature to evoke both physical breadth and character depth. In some works, it describes tangible elements—such as structures with wide, radiant walls or the powerful, measurable force of steam—underscoring the vast, enveloping nature of a setting or mechanism [1, 2, 3]. In other contexts, it characterizes personalities and moods, suggesting a generous, open-hearted nature or a state of heightened enthusiasm that transcends ordinary limits [4, 5, 6]. Whether illustrating the all-pervading influence of a person's demeanor or the literal expansion of energy and space, the word enriches descriptions by blending concrete physicality with metaphorical expansiveness [7, 8, 9].
- But the chamber had been reformed; it was of many hued crystal, of expansive wall and gave forth a light all its own.
— from Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight by Mathew Joseph Holt - True; as there is no power opposed to the expansive force of caloric in elastic bodies, its effect must be the same in all of them.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - If an expansive bit is obtainable, bore the hole from the center of the circle with the bit set at 1-3/8" radius.
— from Toy Craft by Leon H. Baxter - Although Mitya was excited and expansive, yet he was melancholy, too.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - This afternoon he was in a particularly good-humored and expansive mood.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - But even though he exclaimed he still preserved for a time his genially expansive mood.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - With light heart, an expansive grin overspreading his countenance, the lad ran to the cook tent for his supper.
— from The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings; Or, Making the Start in the Sawdust Life by Edgar B. P. Darlington - Reserved people often really need the frank discussion of their sentiments and griefs more than the expansive.
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë - The prosperous man’s smile grew slightly more expansive, and he simply pointed up the river towards the next bend of it.
— from The innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton
