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distend

UK/dɪˈstɛnd/
verbC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #15,010 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: distended, distending, distends

To distend is to swell out from inside pressure. A distended stomach, distend the balloon, distended veins.

It is a medical word and a sign rather than a symptom: a distended abdomen is something a doctor observes, and it can mean obstruction, fluid or gas. The Latin means to stretch apart, and tension and extend come from the same verb.

Definitions of distend

  1. 1verbdistendTo swell out from inside pressure.C2

    “The balloon distended as it filled with hot air.”

distend is a swelling.

Where it comes from

  1. Latin

    distendō

  2. English, today

    distend

Borrowed from Latin distendō.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

distend in the wild

  • Irrigation fluid (most commonly 'normal' saline) is used to distend the joint and make a surgical space.

    Arthroscopy

  • In the breeding season, the male is able to distend his striking red gular sac.

    Great frigatebird

  • The heaviest southwest, the Brahmaputra, and other rivers to distend their banks, often flooding surrounding areas.

    Floods in India

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.