enlargement

Etymology

It is formed from English enlarge + -ment.^[2][3][4][5] The verb is from Old French enlargier (“to widen, increase, make larger”), from en- and large;^[3][6][2] the OED notes that some modern uses of the verb follow those of French élargir.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Release from confinement or bondage: 1540, in an Act of Parliament of Henry VIII.^[2] Etymonline likewise dates the word to the 1530s, as a release from confinement, from the Middle English sense of enlarge "to release a prisoner" (mid-15th century).^[3] Merriam-Webster gives 1540 as its first known use.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The sense "increase in size or extent" followed in 1564, in Haward's translation of Eutropius.^[2][3] From about 1691, in Boyle, the word could also mean the thing added to make something larger.^[2] Other senses were figurative: the spreading of a doctrine (1607–1644, now obsolete), copious discourse on a subject (1659, now archaic), in religious use the freedom felt in prayer (1648), and the widening of a person's mind and sympathies (from 1806).^[2] Johnson (1755) gave "increase; augmentation; farther extension" as the first sense.^[8] The photographic sense, a print made larger than the negative, is from 1866.^[2][3]

Timeline

• 1540 – release from confinement.^[2][7]
• 1564 – increase in extent, size or amount.^[2][3]
• 1607 – diffusion, propagation (obsolete by 1644).^[2]
• 1659 – copious discourse on a subject (now archaic).^[2]
• before 1691 – something added so as to enlarge.^[2]
• 1806 – a widening of the mind or sympathies.^[2]
• 1866 – a photographic print larger than the negative.^[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of making something larger, or the state of being made larger; expansion or increase: The enlargement of the harbour took six years.^[9][7][2]
2. Something that makes a thing larger, or is added to it.^[9][2]
3. A photographic print larger than the negative it was made from.^[9][2]
4. A widening of the mind, knowledge or sympathies.^[7][2]
5. Release from confinement or bondage; liberation.^[7][2]
6. (archaic) Copious discussion of a subject; amplification in speech or writing.^[7][2]

Related words

• enlarge
• large
• largesse
• enlarger

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins