Meaning & use
open your horizons
Last updated
Meaning
phraseidiomfigurative
To gain new experiences and knowledge that make you more open-minded and aware of the world.
Grammar: Used with a possessive adjective: open your horizons, open her horizons. Often followed by 'by doing something'.
Patterns
- open your horizons
- open someone's horizons
- open your horizons by doing something
Traveling alone opened my horizons and taught me to be more independent.
Studying abroad really opened her horizons; she came back with a new perspective.
Reading books from other cultures can open your horizons without leaving home.
Common combinations
- open your horizons
- Learning a language can open your horizons.
- broaden your horizons
- Many people travel to broaden their horizons.
- expand your horizons
- The course helped me expand my horizons.
Synonyms and how they differ
- broaden your horizons
- This is a very common variant with the same meaning; 'broaden' is slightly more formal than 'open'.
- expand your horizons
- Also means the same, but 'expand' often suggests making something bigger rather than just opening it up.
Opposites
Commonly confused: open your horizons or open your eyes?
open your horizons vs open your eyes
This means to make someone realize the truth about something, often something unpleasant, rather than to gain broad experience.
Practice
Volunteering abroad really ___ my horizons.
Choose one answer.
The phrase is 'open your horizons', and here it needs the past tense 'opened' to match the past-time context. 'Opened up' is a different phrasal verb meaning to become more communicative.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “open your horizons”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.