distend

Instead, random bits of the Peep chick — its flat base, the curved neck, the tail — distend until they look like bubbles about to burst.

From Salon ● Feb. 2, 2023

Its body seemed to distend, its muscles to melt.

From The New Yorker ● Feb. 11, 2019

Like dispatches from another dimension, Katz’s drawings distend the ordinary geometry of the comics page, much as desire contorts the imagination.

From Slate ● Mar. 30, 2018

Does the league really want to so distend its compensation scale for any commissioner, much less this one?

From Washington Post ● Nov. 14, 2017

The face of Etienne’s watch appears to distend.

From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr

What might have been a crisp and moody entertainment, in Graham Greene’s elevated sense of that word, distends.

From New York Times ● Jan. 5, 2023

This stimulatory activity is brief, however, because when the intestine distends with chyme, the enterogastric reflex inhibits secretion.

From Textbooks ● Jun. 19, 2013

Within an hour of lunch, the stomach distends to the point where pants need to be unbuttoned, and it remains this way for the rest of the day.

From US News ● Nov. 21, 2012

An analogy often invoked across Afghanistan is that of the water-filled bag: squeeze the bottom, the top distends.

From New York Times ● Feb. 1, 2012

There is a little nourishment in it, and it distends their stomachs, and gives them the feeling of having had a meal.

From Expositions of Holy Scripture Isaiah and Jeremiah by Alexander Maclaren

Yet had Beijing followed through on the financial liberalization envisioned in the WTO agreement, the housing market might not have grown so distended or the balance sheets of local governments so precarious.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026

Onyeaka wondered if that abundance could be harnessed to feed people in conflict zones where children were suffering from malnutrition, their distended stomachs a clear sign of protein deficiency.

From Salon ● Jan. 29, 2025

The first two were great fun, and apparently being subsumed into the distended viscera of the MCU won’t stop “Deadpool and Wolverine” or whatever from being R-rated fun.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 1, 2024

Cardiac activity can influence auditory and visual perception, and touch and sensory perceptions have been shown to be impaired during the systolic phase of the cardiac cycle when blood vessels are briefly distended.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 28, 2023

As Scabior said it, Harry’s scar, which was stretched tight across his distended forehead, burned savagely.

From "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling

Songs like “No Good Deed” and “March of the Witch Hunters” are chopped up and rearranged to allow for more dialogue and less emoting, distending the film into a bloated heap.

From Salon ● Nov. 21, 2025

I think what we are going for is condensing stage time, while distending mythic time … if that makes ANY sense!

From New York Times ● Nov. 22, 2021

It’s a reminder that our smallness is sometimes petty, the unwelcome gravity of others’ suffering distending her grief.

From Slate ● Jun. 9, 2016

Maintaining vascular tone within the veins prevents the veins from merely distending, dampening the flow of blood, and as you will see, vasoconstriction actually enhances the flow.

From Textbooks ● Jun. 19, 2013

Great distending clouds of chalk and earth and granite spout into the sky.

From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr