Ask a room of women what shoe size they wear and most can answer. Ask what width they wear and the room goes quiet — and that is not their fault. Width is the half of shoe sizing nobody explains, the letters are not standardized between brands, and the women's scale and the men's scale use the same letters to mean different amounts of room. This guide lays out both scales side by side, explains why a women's 4E and a men's 4E are not the same width, and shows how to measure your own foot at home so the letters stop being a guessing game.
The Women's Width Scale
Women's widths in the U.S. run on a letter scale built around B as the medium. From narrowest to widest:
| Letter | Common name | Who it fits |
|---|---|---|
| AA (2A) | Narrow | A slim foot that swims in a standard shoe, with heel slip even when the length is right |
| B | Medium / Standard | The default women's width — if a shoe shows no width letter at all, it is almost always a B |
| D | Wide | One full step wider than medium; the first stop when a B pinches across the ball of the foot |
| 2E (EE) | Extra Wide | For feet that bulge over the edge of a D, bunions, or all-day swelling |
| 4E (EEEE) | Extra Wide — the top of the women's scale | The widest women's width made; this is where the women's scale ends, and it is the width XLfeet labels "Extra Wide (4E)" |
Two rules govern the whole scale. First, each letter step adds roughly 3/16 of an inch of room around the ball of the foot at the same size — small on a ruler, decisive on a foot. Second, width grows with size: a size 12 B is a wider shoe than a size 7 B, because the whole shoe is built bigger. That is why a width letter only means anything together with its size.
The Men's Width Scale
Men's widths use the same letters, but the scale is shifted. D is the men's medium, and the scale runs much further at the top end:
| Letter | Common name | Who it fits |
|---|---|---|
| B | Narrow | A slim men's foot; note this is the letter that means medium for women |
| D | Medium / Standard | The default men's width — and the letter that means wide for women |
| 2E (EE) | Wide | The standard step up for a broad foot or a high instep |
| 4E (EEEE) | Extra Wide | Where many men's lines stop — the men's scale keeps going |
| 6E | Extra Wide | Serious width for work boots and walking shoes that few stores stock |
| 8E | The widest men's width | The top of the men's scale — eight E's of room, and a width most retailers never carry |
Same Letter, Different Width
Here is the part that trips up almost everyone: the letters are relative to each gender's own starting point, and the two scales do not start in the same place. Shoes are built on a last — the foot-shaped form the shoe is made around — and men's and women's lasts are different shapes. The men's last starts wider through the ball and the heel, so every letter on the men's scale sits on top of a wider base.
New Balance publishes actual ball-width measurements, and they make the gap concrete. Compare feet of the same length — a women's size 10 is the same length as a men's size 8.5 (the standard conversion is about 1.5 sizes):
- A women's 10 in a D measures about 9.6 cm across the ball. A men's 8.5 in a D measures about 10.2 cm. Same letter, same foot length — the men's shoe is roughly a quarter inch wider.
- A men's 8.5 in the narrow B measures about 9.9 cm — the same as a women's 10 in the 2E extra wide. The men's narrow is the women's extra wide.
- At the top end, a men's 4E at that length measures about 10.9 cm — a full centimeter wider than the women's 2E.
The practical consequence cuts both ways. A woman whose feet are still crowded in the widest women's shoe she can find is not out of options: crossing to the men's department is a legitimate move, because the men's scale starts wider and runs to 6E and 8E. If you cross over, convert the length first (your women's size minus about 1.5), then expect to start roughly two letter steps down from your women's width — a women's 4E foot usually starts around a men's 2E at the converted size, not a men's 4E. Treat that as a starting point for fitting, not a standard: lasts differ by brand, and the men's heel is wider too, so check heel fit as carefully as the toes.
Don't Trust the Words — Trust the Letters
If the letters are confusing, the marketing words are worse, because there is no standard for what "wide" and "extra wide" mean in words — only the letters carry measurements, and even those vary by brand. Real examples from brands on our own shelves:
- At New Balance (and Orthofeet), a women's shoe sold as "Extra Wide" is a 2E.
- At Drew, a women's XW is a true 4E — a full two letter steps wider than the New Balance shoe wearing the same "extra wide" description. Drew's WW ("Wide Wide") sits in between, in the 2E/3E tier.
Two shoes can both say "extra wide" on the page and differ by nearly 3/8 of an inch across the ball. That is why XLfeet labels women's extra wide as "Extra Wide (4E)" with the letter code attached, and why the safest habit in wide shoe shopping is simple: shop by the letter, never by the word.
How to Measure Your Foot Width at Home
You do not need a Brannock device to get a usable width measurement. A sheet of paper, a pen, and a ruler will do:
- Put the paper on a hard floor and stand on it in the socks you plan to wear, with your full weight on the foot. Measure late in the day, when feet are at their largest.
- Trace the outline of your foot, keeping the pen vertical.
- Mark the widest points on both sides of the tracing — that is across the ball of the foot, at the joints behind your big toe and little toe.
- Measure straight across between the marks. That is your foot width. Do both feet and use the larger one — most people have one foot measurably wider than the other.
- Measure the length the same way, heel to the end of your longest toe, and match both numbers to the size chart for the gender scale you are shopping. Width without length (or length without width) is only half an answer.
One piece of fitting advice from the XLfeet sales floor, because it comes up constantly: the most common fit mistake is going up a size in length to get more width. Most people who think they need a longer shoe actually need a wider one — they have been adding length they do not need to compensate for width that regular stores never stocked. A longer shoe puts the flex point in the wrong place, lets the heel slip, and still pinches at the ball. If your toes have room but the sides are bursting, do not go longer. Go wider. When a customer sends us a foot measurement, the one we ask for is length in inches, heel to longest toe — and most of the time it shows the size they have been wearing was never the problem. The width was.
The Top of Each Scale, on Our Shelves
Women's 4E: where the women's scale tops out
Our women's range runs to size 13 and tops out at 4E. The deepest 4E shoe we carry is the Drew Shoe Happy — a women's athletic walker stocked in 4E in every size from 6 to 12, across six colors, at $179.95. If a women's scale that ends at 4E has a flagship, this is it: the full size run, in the widest women's width there is.
Need the length as well as the width? The Drew Shoe Felicity carries the same true Drew 4E out to a women's size 13, in two colors, at $139.95 — one of the very few 4E shoes anywhere built on a size 13 women's last.
Men's 8E: how far the men's scale runs
The men's scale does not stop where the women's does. Our men's range runs to size 21, and the widths run to 8E — three letter steps past the widest women's width. The Drew Shoe Match, a leather slip-on at $179.95, is stocked in 8E in sizes 8 through 14 in both its colors. An 8E is not a stretched 4E; it is a shoe built on an 8E last, with the ball, instep, and heel volume to match.
For an 8E with a zipper instead of a slip-on — and stock on the shelf at our St. Paul store, not just in the catalog — the Drew Shoe Miller in Black runs 8E in sizes 8 through 13 at $179.95, alongside its 4E and 6E widths.
Shop by the Letter
Start from the width, then find the shoe — not the other way around. Browse the full women's shoes range, go straight to the men's 8E collection or the 6E wide collection if that is your end of the scale, or use Shop by Width to see every width we carry in one place. And if your measurement lands somewhere the chart does not answer cleanly, send it over — a foot length in inches and a width across the ball is enough for the XLfeet team to point you at the right letter.
Width measurements cited from New Balance's published size and width guide (women's size 10 and men's size 8.5 ball widths) and standard U.S. width charts; the 3/16-inch step is the conventional width-grade increment at the ball of the foot. Background reading: New Balance Size & Width Guide; BlitzResults, Shoe Width Guide.