Usage of wide as a suffix

I've looked for the subject, but I don't find a comprehensive answer. I've checked Fowler's MEU, but I'm not happy with the answers I find because I don't find the precise point I'm looking for, so I asking for help here.

May we add "wide" to any noun? For example, if I want to refer to an organization like a bank, may I write "bankwide", "bank-wide", or "bank wide". Are there any specific rules about it?

Could "at large" be a substitute (depending on context of course)? For example, the document was distributed to the the main office, and the bank at large (or bankwide).


From Collins Dictionary:

-wide as a suffix:

-wide combines with nouns to form adjectives which indicate that something exists or happens throughout the place or area that the noun refers to.

  • ...a Europe-wide conference on security and cooperation.
  • Is the problem one that's industry-wide?

-wide also combines to form adverbs.

  • Employers want to be sure recruits understand business Europe-wide.
  • Country-wide, a total of 22 political parties are competing for the voters' allegiance.

As for bankwide (bank wide, bank-wide) there are some usage examples available:

From Securities Activities of Banks :

The aggregate percentage is “the mean of the bank's yearly bank-wide compensation percentage for the immediately preceding year and the bank's yearly bank-wide compensation percentage for the year immediately preceding that year.” A bank's yearly “bank-wide compensation...

From SEC docket:

The “aggregate relationship-total compensation percentage" of a bank operating under the bankwide approach would be calculated in a similar manner as the “ relationship-total compensation percentage” of an account under the ...


The still productive suffix -wide can be attached to nouns that denote a discrete unit, whether social, geographic, or even textual, which has identifiable sub-units included in the scope of the modifier thus created. They may range from commonly used words — districtwide, citywide, regionwide, statewide, nationwide, worldwide — to ad hoc coinages or jargon limited to a particular group.

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Community organizations face a major challenge in securing what they need to fund their own operations while pursuing a neighborhood-wide plan. — David J. Wright, It Takes a Neighborhood: Strategies to Prevent Urban Decline, 2001, 63.

A district-wide approach allows individual property owners to pursue more comprehensive measures and also take into account social and economic criteria with respect to the buildings most in need of refurbishment. — Peter Droege,Urban Energy Transition: Renewable Strategies for Cities and Regions, 2018.

Here, district is the translation of the German Bezirk, an official district within a city.

Short-term, negligible, parkwide, adverse effects would occur when park staff relocate equipment during flood events. — Herbert Hoover National Historic Site, 2006.

In these nursing contexts, housewide means ‘hospital-wide’. For words not common to all speakers and thus less likely to have a dictionary entry, hyphenation may vary.

This exploratory quantitative research study focused on a house wide hospital Registered Nurse float pool and its impact on nurse job satisfaction. — Megan E. Duffy, Effects of a House Wide Hospital Registered Nurse Float Pool, 2010.

To facilitate completion of the staging process for over 700 Registered Nurses, the Implementation Workgroup recommended establishment of both house-wide panels and unitbased panels. — Barbara Haag-Heitman, Clinical Practice Development Using Novice to Expert Theory, 1999.

This “buy-in” created a common housewide standard for pain identification and documentation, as well as a system-wide approach to pain management. — Debra Mark, Integrating Evidence into Practice for Impact, 2014.

The suffix can also serve at various levels of an organization, including groupwide, teamwide, chapterwide, sectionwide, company-wide, corporate-wide, branchwide, businesswide, and, of course, bankwide.

Concurrently with the preparation of the department plans, the task force developed plans on bankwide matters— areas which were corporation-oriented rather than department-oriented. — Burroughs Clearing House 51 (1966), 25.

In these two examples, the suffix is applied to a chapter in a law code and a virtual book file composed of individual files in a software program:

Current Section 5324(c), '“Prohibitions Against Regulating Operations and Charges,” is moved to Section 5334, “Administrative Provisions,” as a new Subsection (b). It is appropriate to house this prohibition in the “Administrative Provisions”section and make it expressly applicable chapter-wide, rather than on capital projects only. — Amending Chapter 53 of Title 49, United States Code

Book-Wide Settings. After you put your files together into a book file, book-wide command settings take precedence over the original individual file settings for the selected book files. — Lisa Jahred, FrameMaker 6: Beyond the Basics, 2001, 325.

While [noun] at large can sometimes substitute for [noun]-wide, it lacks the economy and flexibility of the suffixed word. A notice inviting students to a schoolwide dance, for instance, would seem overly formal if it were called “a dance for the school at large.”