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say it: SWEE-ping
sweeping is an adjective and noun meaning "taking in or moving over (or as if over) a wide area; often used in combination". It carries 3 recorded senses.
taking in or moving over (or as if over) a wide area; often used in combination
“a sweeping glance”
“a wide-sweeping view of the river”
ignoring distinctions
“sweeping generalizations”
“wholesale destruction”
the act of cleaning with a broom
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for sweeping come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.