wider

cast (one's) net wider

To broaden one's search or criteria for something, thus giving oneself more options. A: "I don't know why John has only applied to Ivy League schools when he only has average grades." B: "I know, I've told him to cast his net wider."
See also: cast, net, wider
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

cast your net wider

or

cast the net wider

COMMON If you cast your net wider or cast the net wider, you include a larger number of people or things, especially when considering or choosing someone or something. The easiest way to find members is through friends of friends but if you want to cast the net wider, put an ad in your local bookshop. We will cast the net wider to look at other factors too. Note: You can also say that you cast your net wide, meaning that you include a large number of people or things. Clarke, as director of training, decided to cast the net wide in the search for the best candidates. England's selectors have been careful to cast their net wide to prepare for the World Cup. Note: The verb spread is sometimes used instead of cast. Ferguson advised him to spread the net wide in his search for players. Police had searched the local area and found nothing so they were spreading their net wider.
See also: cast, net, wider
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed.
See also:
  • wash (one's) hands of (someone or something)
  • wash hands of
  • wash one's hands of
  • wash your hands of
  • wash your hands of somebody/something
  • wash your hands of something/someone
  • kick (oneself) for (doing something)
  • keep in sight
  • keep sight of (someone or something)
  • keep sight of somebody/something
References in periodicals archive
We need to encourage wider engagement and the open and welcome involvement of us all.
New authority needs its own constitution
A group of liberal bishops disassociated themselves from the motion for different reasons, suggesting that it moves the church away from full inclusion of all members: "Our witness to justice has been prophetic in this nation and in the wider Anglican Communion on the issues of the full inclusion of people of color and persons who are differently-abled," said the bishops.
ECUSA decisions cause more turmoil: Williams suggests two-tier church
Banks, insurance companies and now the NHS are transferring clerical work abroad and while in the short term these institutions save money, in the wider scheme they are undermining the UK economy.
Letter: YourSay - Short-term advantages to cash
They also found that their offerings were not competitive with the wider inline offerings.
Whatever happened to mid-web? A brief look at the short history--and promising future--of an overlooked web format
Stevens notes that visual ranges in hunting birds and snapping turtles typically are 20[degrees] wider than those in grain-eating birds and herbivorous turtles.
Sight for 'saur eyes: T. rex vision was among nature's best
In some ways, it is simply a glorified, superscale shop window, but it also has wider urban ambitions.
Cathedral of commerce: this new department store is a monumental shop window with wider urban ambitions
automobile fleet and a wider availability of all-season high-performance tires should drive the average price per tire higher.
Replacement tire market at $15 bil
However, the book is not narrowly concerned with these issues and it presents policy practice in a wider social and political context.
Thomas M. Meenaghan, Keith M. Kilty and John G. McNutt, Social Policy Analysis and Practice
If a MRF deals with minimal outthrows and contaminants with its shipments to end markets, pulling material from a wider distance is feasible.
Stepping things up: with price and demand for secondary commodities increasing, MRF operators are seeking ways to improve their operations
Martin will take a "wider perspective" than our faith.
Quo Vadis, Canada?
It is just this wider perspective that the Museum of Contemporary Art show doesn't deliver; it abjures any in-depth context in its tiny catalogue on an artist who has now been internationally active outside Korea since about 1993; and it confines her enormously ambitious works to a sequence of small, dimly lit galleries cluttered by concrete pillars and awkward mezzanine spaces confused by ugly staircases.
Lee Bul: Museum of Contemporary Art
The new MM Series upholstered chairs feature a taller and wider backrest plus a wider and deeper seat with four-way contouring and waterfall front.
Ergonomic chairs
The Sounds of Milan provides an examination of music and its wider historical and cultural context in early modern Milan.
The Sounds of Milan: 1585-1650
They have a wider scope and a wider awareness of the profitability of business being written."
CFOs held to higher standard: profitability is job #1
Mr Verheugen said that work had started on the country-specific Wider Europe Action Plans.
WIDER EUROPE: VERHEUGEN MAPS OUT WAY AHEAD