DISTEND • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Distend

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/dɪstˈɛnd/ Listen

verb

Distend v. t. (past & past part. distended; pres. part. distending)

To extend in some one direction; to lengthen out; to stretch. (R.) "But say, what mean those colored streaks in heaven Distended as the brow of God appeased?"

To stretch out or extend in all directions; to dilate; to enlarge, as by elasticity of parts; to inflate so as to produce tension; to cause to swell; as, to distend a bladder, the stomach, etc. "The warmth distends the chinks."

Synonyms: To dilate; expand; enlarge; swell; inflate.

Distend v. i. To become expanded or inflated; to swell. "His heart distends with pride."

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Etymology of 'Distend'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Distend" Quotes from Famous Books

... cut across the New Kishenevsky Market. Suddenly the savoury, greasy odour of something roasted compelled him to distend his nostrils. Lichonin recalled that he had not eaten anything since noon yesterday, and at once felt hunger. He turned to the right, into the ...

— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... to know that what he felt must be love;—nothing else could distend him with happiness, until his soul felt light and bladder-like, but love. As an oyster opens, when expecting the tide, so did his soul expand at the contemplation of matrimony. Labor ceased to be a trouble to him; he sang and sewed from morning to night; his hot goose ...

— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... passage in Exodus has frequently occurred to me as bearing reference to these vermin, which are the greatest enemies to man and beast. It is well known that, from the size of a grain of sand in their natural state, they will distend to the size of a hazelnut after having preyed for some days upon the blood of an animal. The Arabs are invariably infested with lice, not only in their hair, but upon their bodies and clothes; even the small charms or spells worn upon the arm in neatly-sewn leathern packets are full of these ...

— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... enviers' jealousy, at end * We have won all we hoped of the friend: We've crowned our meeting with a close embrace * On quilts where new brocades with sendal blend; On bed of perfumed leather, which the spoils * Of downy birds luxuriously distend. But I abstain me from unneeded wine, * When honey-dews of lips sweet musk can lend: Now from the sweets of union we unknow * Time near and far, if slow or fast it wend, The seventh night hath come and gone, O strange! * How went the nights we never reckt ...

— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... its full glory on that day. Every one gathered there, every one talked to every one else before parting, and the long spaces and silences and pauses of the day allowed the comments and the questions and the surmises to grow and swell and distend into gigantic images before night took every one and stretched them upon their backs ...

— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

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