sprawling.

Extending over a wide area in a spread-out, often irregular way.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• sprawling city
• sprawling suburb
• sprawling settlement

On the page

The sprawling suburb had three shopping centers but no recognizable center.

It took two buses to cross the sprawling settlement.

Her street map unfolded into a chart of the sprawling city.

Usage notes

Primary category: setting. An established place-description adjective; often implies inefficient or uncontrolled expansion, but it can simply emphasize extent. Not an inflection used to add a second sprawl entry. Comparative: more sprawling; superlative: most sprawling. Participial source verb [base, third-person present, past, past participle, -ing]: sprawl, sprawls, sprawled, sprawled, sprawling. Record these as same-lexeme form aliases, not additional vocabulary entries.