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Definitions

distend

[dih-stend] / dɪˈstɛnd /


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

Pregnancy is a wonder, even through the finale when a parent pushes their newborns into the world, and those tiny humans distend the most intimate parts of their bodies.

From Salon Nov. 9, 2025

Its body seemed to distend, its muscles to melt.

From The New Yorker Feb. 11, 2019

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

From Washington Post Nov. 14, 2017

This disorder arises when defective valves allow blood to accumulate within the veins, causing them to distend, twist, and become visible on the surface of the integument.

From Textbooks Jun. 19, 2013

When a man falls upon his knees and grieves, doth not his musculature contract and his ligaments distend?

From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party" by M.T. Anderson

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

In his 1979 piece “Triangle — Stone/Cloth,” which leads off the exhibition, a fist-size rock distends a white banner into a triangular rictus of billows.

From New York Times Apr. 10, 2019

Food that distends the stomach initiates long reflexes.

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

The former contracts with wet and the other distends and gets out of shape.

From Nature and Human Nature by Thomas Chandler Haliburton

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

But the groaning synthesizer underneath her bashful smile tells you something is off — a crystalline tone now distended, unnerving.

From Los Angeles Times Jul. 21, 2026

To actually feel intoxicated, a chimp would need to eat so much fruit that its stomach would become painfully distended.

From Science Daily Dec. 1, 2025

Zar Zar has a distended belly because of a serious abdominal injury.

From BBC Apr. 2, 2025

He was in trouble, his abdomen distended and his nose and ears hot.

From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck

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




Vocabulary lists containing distend


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