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Dilate   Listen
verb
Dilate  v. t.  (past & past part. dilated; pres. part. dilating)  
1.
To expand; to distend; to enlarge or extend in all directions; to swell; opposed to contract; as, the air dilates the lungs; air is dilated by increase of heat.
2.
To enlarge upon; to relate at large; to tell copiously or diffusely. (R.) "Do me the favor to dilate at full What hath befallen of them and thee till now."
Synonyms: To expand; swell; distend; enlarge; spread out; amplify; expatiate.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Dilate" Quotes from Famous Books



... of Orion; diamond-like Capella; and the clear eyes of the Gemini. Under such influences, with the breath of the tropics in your nostrils, and your heart stirred by the rich melodies of the invisible orchestra, waltzing becomes a sublime passion, in which all your faculties dilate to utmost expansion, and you float out into happy forgetfulness of time ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... over to tuck the rug in—and she felt the touch of his hands and perceived the scent of him—the subtle scent, not a perfume hardly, of his coat, or his hair, a wild rush of that passionate disturbance came over her again, making her heart beat and her eyes dilate. ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn

... the Regent Circus, Piccadilly; and as the principal attractions glare upon the astonishment of the spectators from the south window, it is there in imagination that we are irresistibly fixed. Before we dilate upon the delicious peculiarities of the exhibition, we deem it absolutely a matter of justice to the noble-hearted patriot who, imitative of the Greeks and Athenians of old, who gave the porticoes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various

... drew near the summit, he quickened his step, unmindful of fatigue, and hurried on without pause or turning of the face. On the summit—to reach which he bent his steps somewhat right of the beaten path—he came to a dead stop, arrested as if by a strong hand. Then one might have seen his eyes dilate, his cheeks flush, his breath quicken, effects all of one bright sweeping glance ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... for Nellie in her invalid state, nobody went to see Fanny Forrest. Now, what could this strange girl be doing with letters from "Dr. Chesterfield"? Even Mrs. Post watched her narrowly as she hurriedly read the lines of the doctor's elegant missive. Her eyes seemed to dilate, her color heightened and a little frown set itself darkly on her brow; but she looked up brightly after a moment's thought, and spoke kindly and pleasantly to the ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King

... post-office, which was merely a corner of the village store, and inquired if there was a letter there for Professor Green D. Brown. I knew very well there was not, of course, but I had the not unexpected pleasure of seeing the postmaster's eyes dilate inquiringly, so that I felt called upon ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... would—but the way they're talked to!" murmured Isabel, who preferred not to dilate just yet on herself. Then in a moment, to change the subject, "Please tell me—isn't there a ghost?" she ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... had come out of the smoky, fumy underground place into the street, into the sweet, disquieting darkness of the night, with its beckoning fires in the sky and on the earth, with its warm, heady air, from which the nostrils dilate avidly, with its aromas, gliding from unseen gardens and flower-beds,—the head of each one of them was aflame and the heart quietly and languishingly yearning from vague desires. It was joyous and arrogant to sense after the rest the new, fresh strength in all the sinews, the deep breathing of ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... learned to watch a man's eyes when I'm talking business to him. If the pupils of his eyes dilate he's listening to you, and thinking about what you're saying. When they contract it means that he's only faking interest, even though he's looking straight at you and wearing a rapt expression. His thoughts are ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber

... overflowing of a heart whose more than passionate devotion amounted to idolatry. How had I deserved to be so blessed by such confessions?—how had I deserved to be so cursed with the removal of my beloved in the hour of my making them? But upon this subject I cannot bear to dilate. Let me say only, that in Ligeia's more than womanly abandonment to a love, alas! all unmerited, all unworthily bestowed, I at length, recognized the principle of her longing, with so wildly earnest a desire, for the life which was now fleeing so rapidly away. It is this wild longing—it ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... forms of this species which sometimes manifest themselves are very singular; the sporangium has a tendency to dilate, becoming funnel-form or even salver-shaped, the stipe shortening and even disappearing. I have a large specimen which superficially resembles some lichen, a Physcia, for example; the sporangia are pressed down, flattened out, extremely irregular, and in many places confluent; the rudimentary ...
— The Myxomycetes of the Miami Valley, Ohio • A. P. Morgan

... overwhelming impression, as if he beheld an extraordinary light, never before seen. His brain seemed to dilate, to expand like a mass of water bursting an encompassing vessel of stone. At that instant a lightning flash colored the sea with livid light, and a thunder clap burst above his head, its echoes rattling ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... let no man presume to | check the liberality of God's gifts, who, | as was said, | HATH SET THE WORLD IN MAN'S HEART. So | as whatsoever is not God but parcel of the | world, he hath fitted it to the | comprehension of man's mind, if man will | open and dilate the powers of | his understanding as he may.{39} | 39. Compare to "mind of glass" above | But yet evermore it must be remembered | that the least part of knowledge passed to | man by this so large a charter ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon

... his temples sprinkled with some volatile and fiery essence. At the same moment a slight tremor shook his limbs and thrilled through his veins. The languor increased, still he kept his gaze upon the star, and now its luminous circumference seemed to expand and dilate. It became gradually softer and clearer in its light; spreading wider and broader, it diffused all space,—all space seemed swallowed up in it. And at last, in the midst of a silver shining atmosphere, he felt as if something burst within his brain,—as ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... fastened on the eastern sky, along the horizon of which layers of clouds, a moment before of a leaden hue were now assuming deeper and deeper crimson tints. As the clouds flushed up into brighter colors his countenance kindled with excitement. His form seemed to dilate, his eyes to flash, his hands unclasped themselves, and he stretched out his arms, as if to welcome a long expected friend. But presently the rays of the sun began to stream over the swelling upland and light up the surface of the river, and fainter and fainter shone the clouds, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... Transylvain have given with regard to the topographical and hydrographical dispositions of this strait are rather vague, and as we shall have to mention it again when we speak of De Bougainville's expedition, we shall not dilate upon it now. After sailing for twenty-two days across this succession of narrow inlets and arms of the sea, in some places three miles wide, in some twelve, which extends for a distance of 440 miles and has received the name of Magellan's Strait, the flotilla emerged ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... husband, in stupefaction at first, but then an irresistible desire to laugh shone in her eyes, passed like a slight shiver over her delicate cheeks, made her upper lip curl and her nostrils dilate, and at last a clear, bright burst of mirth came from her lips, a torrent of gayety which was lively and sonorous as the song of a bird. She repeated, with little mischievous exclamations which issued from between her white teeth, and hurt Parent as much as a bite would have done: ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... the possession of the sorrow-stricken mother. Then we were silent and watched. Slowly and gently the lids opened—now again we could look into those clear blue orbs. Wider—wider—and still wider they grow—uplifted, right away beyond the three forms of clay before her. See how the pupils dilate—they seem to swamp the blue! And so for a few short moments they remain. It was a gaze right beyond us to—- what! Will it be old-fashioned to suggest "Angels," perhaps! Until I grow wiser I shall hold fast to Angels. O, the ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.

... We could dilate upon the occurrences that ensued. How Mr. Theodosius and Miss Lavinia danced, and talked, and sighed for the remainder of the evening—how the Miss Crumptons were delighted thereat. How the writing-master continued to frisk about with one-horse power, and ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... and perhaps comes to the little boy whose parents disapprove of novel-reading, and have no work of fiction in the house except a pious fraud called "Six Months in a Convent," and the latest comic almanac. The boy's eyes dilate as he steals some of the treasures out of the wondrous pages, and he longs to lose himself in the land of enchantment open before him. He tells at home that he has seen the most wonderful book that ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... may be seen upon the walls concerning enlistments in the army. And never did auctioneer dilate with more rapture upon the charms of some country-seat put up for sale, than the authors of these placards do, upon the beauty and salubrity of the distant climes, for which the regiments wanting recruits are about to sail. Bright lawns, vine-clad hills, endless meadows of verdure, ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... an angel might share. The long, slender bars of cloud float like golden fishes in the crimson light. From the earth, as from a shore, I look out into the silent sea. I seem to partake its rapid transformations; the active enchantment reaches my dust, and I dilate and conspire with the morning wind. Give me health and a day and I will make the pomp of ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... too," said Hatton quietly. "These are indeed critical times Mr Morley. I was thinking when walking with our friend Gerard yesterday, and hearing him and his charming daughter dilate upon the beauties of the residence which they had forfeited, I was thinking what a strange thing life is, and that the fact of a box of papers belonging to him being in the possession of another person who only lives close by, for we were walking ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... only of the ignorance of a quack. Some of the modern twaddle about health is a conglomeration of the poorest kind of trash, expressing and inculcating more errors and whims than it does common sense. Many persons dilate upon these subjects with amazing flippancy, their mission seeming to be to traduce the profession rather than to act as help-mates and assistants. We do not believe that there is any real argument going on between the educated members of the ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... movements that are the normal accompaniments of the emotions in question. If I observe myself carefully, I may find that my own chest is tending to swell and my own limbs to tighten, in imitation of the runner's, or my own pupils to dilate and the muscles of my face to wrinkle and to part, in imitation of the Dutchman's. And these movement-impulses I objectify. I not only see jollity in the face, but laughter as well; in the statue, not only excitement, but running. And again—where my body is, there am I; so I am jolly ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker

... scarcely appeared for what complaint. He and Jean-Marie had each medicine to take at different periods of the day. The Doctor used to lie in wait for the exact moment, watch in hand. 'There is nothing like regularity,' he would say, fill out the doses, and dilate on the virtues of the draught; and if the boy seemed none the better, the Doctor was not at all ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... in white robes, with palms in their hands, and crowns of glory on their heads, crying-out, "Salvation to our God, which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb!" Tell me, does not this view dilate the parent's heart, and make him thankful that he has a sainted child in heaven? Weep for those you have with you, who live under the shades of a moral death, who have entered upon a thorny pilgrimage, and are exposed to the ravages of ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips

... however, retards digestion, altogether out of proportion to the alcohol it contains.) Alcohol increases the action of the heart, increases the blood pressure, and causes the vessels of the whole body to dilate, especially those of the skin; hence there is a feeling of warmth. It the person previously felt cold he now feels warm. The result of the increased circulation through the various organs is that they work with greater vigour, hence ...
— The Chemistry of Food and Nutrition • A. W. Duncan

... over the little circular muscles that run round and round in the coats of the blood-vessels. When they are excited, these muscles contract and the size of the arteries is diminished: when they are paralyzed, the arterial inner muscles relax and the vessels dilate. The vaso-motor nerves have their governing centre in that upper portion of the spinal cord which is within the skull, the so-called medulla oblongata. When the spinal cord is divided, the vessels are ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various

... fast as she could, eager to dilate on the subject of the embarrassed Orlando's virtues, flattered in her motherly old heart by the praise of his sermons, and yet, all the time, while her peaked chin worked excitedly, thinking about the roasted young pig that waited for her to ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... nearly all his simplicity, the poem of Dante manifests a peculiar intensity of subjective feeling which was foreign to the age of Homer, as indeed to all pre-Christian antiquity. But concerning this we need not dilate, as it has often been duly remarked upon, and notably by Carlyle, in his "Lectures on Hero-Worship." Who that has once heard the wail of unutterable despair ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... to establish a newspaper—The Derwent Star, and Van Diemen's Land Intelligencer.[70] Though but a quarto leaf, with broad margin, and all the contrivances which dilate the substance of a journal, it was much too large for the settlement—where often there was nothing to sell; where a birth or marriage was published sooner than a paragraph could be printed; where a taste for general literature had no existence, and politics were excluded. The ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... the keen air and bristled. Venters clutched at his rifle. Whitie sometimes made a mistake, but Ring never. The dull thud of hoofs almost deprived Venters of power to turn and see from where disaster threatened. He felt his eyes dilate as he stared at Lassiter leading Black Star and Night out of the sage, with Jane Withersteen, in rider's costume, close ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey

... the last rays of afternoon light full on her face, turned pale to the lips, and the pupils of her eyes seemed to dilate. ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... of agonised feelings? Can he not understand that visions of my lately-forsaken green play-ground came over the black and massive waves, and seemed to settle on them as in mockery? But were I to dilate upon these horrors, would he not weary of them? Had I been the son of a king thus situated, or even the acknowledged offspring of a duke, there might have been sympathy. But the newly-emancipated schoolboy, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... shown in the Introduction to this work, till about the thirteenth century. And for two or three centuries later, it was so different from the modern English, as to be scarcely intelligible at all to the mere English reader; but, gradually improving by means upon which we need not here dilate, it at length became what we now find it,—a language copious, strong, refined, impressive, and capable, if properly used, of a great ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... both a great many latent Ruggidnesses, and the particular Sizes, Shapes, and Situations of the extremely little Bodies that cause them, and perhaps might perceive among other Varieties that we now can but imagine, how those little Protuberances and Cavities do Interrupt and Dilate the Light, by mingling with it a multitude of little and singly undiscernable Shades, though some of them more, and some of them less Minute, some less, and some more Numerous; according to the Nature ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle

... mind there has always been something inexpressibly awful in family feuds. Mortal hatred seems to deepen and dilate into something diabolical in these perverted animosities. The mystery of their origin—their capacity for evolving latent faculties of crime—and the steady vitality with which they survive the hearse, ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... 5 and 6 dilate with keen irony on the fate of the first half of Israel's sin—the calf. It was thought a god, but its worshippers shall be in a fright for it. 'Calves,' says Hosea, though there was but one at Beth-el; and he uses the feminine, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... head, so lit, fascinated Dick, and the mingled rhythms of her purring and the wizard's mounted and mounted, until to his bewildered mind the whole world seemed filled with their murmur, and the demoniac head seemed to dilate as he gazed at it. Suddenly, Rufus paused in his sing-song, and the cat's purr ceased with it, as though her share of the ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray

... silence in some circumstances, in others a prudence of a higher order would justify her in declaring her sentiments. Accordingly she withdrew from the clasping arms of Mr. Somerset, and whilst her beautiful figure seemed to dilate into more than its usual dignity, ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... sport of mind and force Hast Thou made Thy universe, But as atmosphere and zone Of Thy loving heart alone. Man, who walketh in a show, Sees before him, to and fro, Shadow and illusion go; All things flow and fluctuate, Now contract and now dilate. In the welter of this sea, Nothing stable is but Thee; In this whirl of swooning trance, Thou alone art permanence; All without Thee only seems, All beside is choice of dreams. Never yet in darkest mood Doubted I that ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... the girl had disappeared. Since that moment he had caught no sound from her. Had she heard, did she know anything of what was happening—that the yacht was now turned homeward? He dared not linger on the thought. The prince was watching him with eyes that seemed to dilate and contract. A moment's carelessness, the briefest cessation of watchfulness would be at once seized upon by his excellency, enabling him to shift the advantage. The young man met ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham

... as the machinery of our physiological theory. The connection of such theories with purely physical facts is given by the experience that an electrical stimulation of the nerve may have the same influence as ideas. The electric current, too, can regulate the beat of the heart, or contract and dilate the vessels, or reenforce and relax the contraction of the muscles, or strengthen and weaken the ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg

... Age of Greece, i. 69.] There is nothing suspicious, as "late," in the mention of Sicily by Odysseus in Ithaca (Odyssey, XX. 383; XXIV. 307). In the same way, if the poet of a western poem does not dilate on the Troad and the people of Asia Minor as the poet of the ILIAD does, that is simply because the scene of the ILIAD is in Asia and the scene of the Odyssey is in the west, when it is not in No Man's land. From the same cause the poet of sea-faring has more occasion ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang

... enchanted when he could dilate on the extraordinary beauty of Byron. One day, at Mr. Home Drummond's, he exclaimed:—"As for poets, I have seen the best that this country has produced, and although Burns had the finest eyes that can be imagined, I never ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... happened. Then the pupils of Leclair's eyes began to dilate with astonishment. Immovable though he still remained, the most intense wonder made itself apparent in his look. Even something akin to fear was mirrored in his gaze. Again his lips twitched. Though he could form no word, a dry, choking ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... persistently on every occasion that you exercise your vocal powers. It not only affects the lungs but the action of the diaphragm involved, and serves to massage, stimulate and invigorate the internal organs lying underneath. There is no need to dilate upon the value of exercise of this sort, for I have referred to this aspect of the question ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden

... growth of the sexual apparatus in the early part of the adolescent period. If the enlargement is only moderate, it may disappear, or at least become spontaneously arrested in its growth, in which case it need cause no concern. If these veins, however, dilate until they form a considerable mass, known as VARICOCELE, they may affect the sexual apparatus deleteriously in two ways: (1) The increased weight in the scrotal sac may cause the sac to become elongated and to annoy the subject by its traction on the spermatic cord. ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall

... to recognize achievement. Notably in the case of Michael Faraday, and less notably, though still conspicuously in many cases, he has bestowed much labor and sacrificed many weeks in setting forth the merits of others. It was evidently a pleasure to him to dilate on the claims ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard

... our host. On rounding the headland there was the path indeed, like a white thread on the green height, but it was beset by foes. Several shots fired from that direction showed this too plainly; and I saw Basil's eyes dilate with wonder and wrath as he marked the quick flashes, the smoke, the sharp report of fire-arms in the tall thicket. The fact was, the enemy had within the last quarter of an hour stolen on a party of mountaineers ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston

... In a letter (Archivo de Simancas, Legajo 7,378, folio 128), Valdelirios, writing to the governor of Buenos Ayres, Don Jose de Caravajal y Lancastre, says: 'Inagotables son los recursos de los Padres para que se dilate y no se ratifique el tratado. . . .' But he gives no proof except that they had sent petitions to the King — surely a very constitutional thing for them to do. *2* The letter was written originally in Guarani, and a certified ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham

... folly of the undertaking, they preferred to dilate upon the criminality of methods and the character of the Sinn Feiners, which is just where they fell into the most fatal mistake of all and made the aftermath what it has been since—a far more ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard

... brain (sec. 270). If the nerves are stimulated more than usual, the muscular walls contract, and the quantity of the blood flowing through them and the supply to the part are diminished. Again, if the stimulus is less than usual, the vessels dilate, and the supply to ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell

... specialist did not dilate into fighting dimensions as—perhaps, again—the Master may have thought he would. He looked a mild surprise, but remained as quiet as one of his own beetles when you touch him and he makes believe he is dead. The blank silence became ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... criticism I would make on Sir Hamar Greenwood's idea of a joke is that he appears to suggest that it would have been less funny if the Black-and-Tans had done the judge some harm. I should have expected him rather to dilate on the attractions of life in the Irish police force for men with a sense of humour. Suppose the judge had been robbed of his watch, or had had his front teeth broken with the muzzle of a revolver like the University Professor at Cork, would ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd

... instincts mark them out to take part in the struggle for success can be identified at once. For the first thing they do is to leave the town. The air of the town is not bracing enough for them. Their nostrils dilate for something keener. Those who are left form a microcosm which is representative enough of the world at large. Between the ages of thirty and forty they begin to sort themselves out. In their own sphere they take their places. A dozen or ...
— Mental Efficiency - And Other Hints to Men and Women • Arnold Bennett

... the familiar or household terms of promus and condus) is formed also in all things, and is best disclosed in the two several appetites in creatures; the one to preserve or continue themselves, and the other to dilate or multiply themselves, whereof the latter seemeth to be the worthier; for in nature the heavens, which are the more worthy, are the agent, and the earth, which is the less worthy, is the patient. In the pleasures of living creatures, ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon

... incessantly obliged to refer to the data of sense or to that totality of visual, tactile, motor, acoustic, thermic, etc., representations that we term the "properties of matter." Our eye, says Tyndall, cannot see sound waves contract and dilate, but we construct them in thought—i.e., by means of visual images. The same remarks are true of chemists. The founders of the atomic theory certainly saw atoms, and pictured them in the mind's eye, and their arrangement in compound ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot

... without so much as an adieu to you! Depend upon it, Jews though they are, they will applaud your Christian forgiveness, and, I do not doubt, Frenchman though he is, young Clemenceau will give you his hand. Dilate not at all, but urge him to leave the town without delay. From the maid I will get to know the hour of the chaise's starting and the route so that you can plant your men. I grant that this has the air of a highwayman's attack, but, after all, the ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... much the more dilate As higher they ascend, had been by Indians Among their forests marvelled ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante

... read the letters.] Return the lords this voice,—— We are their creature, And it is fit a good and honest prince, Whom they, out of their bounty, have instructed With so dilate and absolute a power, Should owe the office of it to their service. And good of all and every citizen. Nor shall it e'er repent us to have wish'd The senate just, and favouring lords unto us, Since their free loves do yield no less defence To a prince's state, than his own innocence. ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson

... there till the blue that overskied us Swooned with passion, though the footing seemed sedate; And the mountains, heaving mighty hearts beside us, Sighed a rapture in a shadow, to dilate, And touch the holy stone ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... progress; inasmuch as it was always found to proceed to a greater distance by the mere force of acquired velocity (which is the only force it ever displayed), than when the vanes were set in motion to aid it—a simple fact, which it is unnecessary to dilate upon. It is to the agency of this cause, namely, the broken continuity of surface, that, I have no doubt, is also to be ascribed the failure of the attempt of Sir George Cayley to propel a Balloon of a somewhat similar shape to the present, which ...
— A Project for Flying - In Earnest at Last! • Robert Hardley

... act of mental volition is united in nature to a certain given motion of the gland. For instance, whenever anyone desires to look at a remote object, the act of volition causes the pupil of the eye to dilate, whereas, if the person in question had only thought of the dilatation of the pupil, the mere wish to dilate it would not have brought about the result, inasmuch as the motion of the gland, which serves to impel the animal spirits towards the ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza

... a character drawn, it was true, by a friendly hand, but to those who were familiar with the life of Pepys, the praise hardly seemed exaggerated. As regarded his official life, it was unnecessary to dilate upon his peculiar merits, for they all knew how faithful he was in his duties, and they all knew, too, how many faithful officials there were working on in obscurity, who were not only never honoured with a monument but who never expected one. The ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... but more particularly the German official and governing class, and her naval and military men, would appear to have imbibed of some distillation of their Emperor's exaggerated pride, and found it too heady an elixir for their sanity. It would ill become us to dilate at length upon the extremes into which their arrogance and luxuriousness led them. With regard, at all events, to the luxury and indulgence, we ourselves had been very far from guiltless. But it may be that our extravagance was less deadly, for the reason that it was ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... flirtations and fine doings. She therefore quietly crossed over to watch her opportunity and take such action as would enable her to get an insight into his and her sentiments. Contrary, however, to all her calculations, no sooner did she reach her destination, than she overheard Shih Hsiang-yuen dilate on the topic of experience, and Pao-yue go on to observe: "Cousin Lin has never indulged in such stuff and nonsense. Had she ever uttered any such trash, I would have become chilled even towards her!" This language suddenly produced, in Lin Tai-yue's ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... palaeography, a manual of art, or a history of learning, and yet has to touch upon all three provinces, it is important to keep it from straying too far into any of them, and this is one of the most difficult tasks that I have ever enterprised. The temptation to dilate upon the beauty and intrinsic interest of the MSS. and upon the characteristic scripts of different ages and countries is hard to resist. And, indeed, without some slight elucidation of such matters my readers may be very ...
— The Wanderings and Homes of Manuscripts - Helps for Students of History, No. 17. • M. R. James

... to fill the side of a newspaper. Mountain rills, gushing rivulets, and murmuring waters! Here they were in abundance, rolling down the rocky mountains from unknown heights, and lending an additional charm to the landscape! Is it necessary to dilate on such beauties?—for if words were conjured in the most delicate and exquisite language imaginable, the glories of Loch Ness and its surroundings are, after all, things to be seen before they can be fully appreciated. The loch is over ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... side, and grasped his arm: there was no sound, no motion. She raised his head with one hand, while at the same time she glanced at an open letter, on which a few lines were scrawled in a large, hurried hand. Every word and letter seemed to dilate before her eyes, as in a brief instant of time she read ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... his stanch defenders propose to adopt, with Madvig, the reading, discessit—"left us", instead of decessit—"died". There really seems no occasion. Unless Atticus knew the father intimately, there was no need to dilate upon the old man's death; and Cicero mentions subsequently, in terms quite as brief, the marriage of his daughter and the birth of his son—events in which we are assured he felt deeply interested. If any further explanation of this seeming coldness ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins

... boy opened this a little to make sure that he was not seen by any one who might come and stare in. Then, standing in its shelter, he tore the letter from his breast pocket, broke the seal, opened it with trembling fingers, and began to read, with eyes beginning to dilate and a choking ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn

... assemble in the Junior recitation-room, and, after organizing themselves by the appointment of a chairman, are waited upon by a committee of the House of Representatives of the Junior Class, who announce that they are ready to proceed with the initiation, and occasionally dilate upon the importance and responsibility of the future position ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... require room, and space to amplifie and expand themselves, and would therefore be planted at more remote distances, and free from all encumbrances: And this upon consideration how slowly a full-grown oak mounts upwards, and how speedily they spread, and dilate themselves to all quarters, by dressing and due culture; so as above forty years advance is to be gain'd by this only industry: And, if thus his Majesties forests and chases were stor'd, viz. with this spreading tree at handsom intervals, by which grazing ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... before the time of Abraham, and that on the right those who lived between the days of Abraham and St. John the Baptist. These souls did not at first recognise Jesus, but were filled nevertheless with sensations of joy and hope. There was not a spot in those narrow confines which did not, as it were, dilate with feelings of happiness. The passage of Jesus might be compared to the wafting of a breath of air, to a sudden flash of light, or to a shower of vivifying dew, but it was swift as a whirlwind. After passing through the two compartments, he ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich

... entirely filled, for the atmospheric pressure diminishing as it ascends, allows the hydrogen gas to dilate, in virtue of its expansive force, and, unless there is space for this expansion, the balloon is sure ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion

... largesses of the admiral, were heard murmuring their slow and artless songs. Sometimes, the grinding of the chains was mixed with the dull noise of shot falling into the holds. These harmonies, and this spectacle, oppress the heart like fear, and dilate it like hope. All this life speaks of death. Athos had seated himself with his son, upon the moss, among the brambles of the promontory. Around their heads passed and repassed large bats, carried along in the fearful whirl of their blind ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... Outstrips our faint expression; e'en so this Outshining and o'erwhelming edifice Fools our fond gaze, and greatest of the great Defies at first our nature's littleness, Till, growing with its growth, we thus dilate Our spirits to the size ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron

... me whispering the sweetest of things in her ear. Imagine her approving my suit, and gently chiding me for talking of Gretna Green. Conceive all this, my dear fellow, and just at the height of my triumph, dilate the eyes of your imagination, and behold the stately form of Lord A——-, my noble host, marching up to me, while a voice that, though low and quiet as an evening breeze, made my heart sink into my shoes, said, 'I believe, sir, you have received ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... operation the probe will have to be passed, both to prevent the wound in the canaliculus from healing up, which it is too apt to do, and also to gradually dilate the nasal duct if it has been previously strictured. Probes and directors of various sizes are required; in fact very much the same instruments (in miniature) as are required for the treatment of ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell

... exists, there will be a resistance to the passage of the blood from the left ventricle, either by a loss of dilatability in the artery, or a contraction of the orifice by the ossified parts. In either case, the blood will reflow upon the heart, and dilate the left ventricle, as in case the first, and others; and, if the mitral valves be thickened and rigid, the left auricle will be more dilated than in a case of simple aneurism of the left ventricle, as appeared also ...
— Cases of Organic Diseases of the Heart • John Collins Warren

... Sbietta, for two hundred crowns. [1] It marches with my property of La Fonte. Our terms were that the estate should revert at the term of three years, [2] and I gave them a lease of it. I did this for the best; but I should have to dilate too long upon the topic were I to enter into all the rascalities they practised on me. Therefore, I refer my cause entirely to God, knowing that He hath ever defended me from those who ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... be that renewed platform activity may be required as time goes on to sustain the spirit and fortify the constancy of the nation. In the meanwhile, speakers, from my experience, cannot do better than dilate upon the immense magnitude of the stakes involved, and probable long duration of the struggle, and the supreme importance that our country should, by the strength and effectiveness of its material contribution to ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various

... true Learning, it might have been preserved unto this daie in all the rarities thereof, not so much by the shuttings up of the multitude of Books, and the rareness thereof for antiquitie, as by the understandings of men and their proficiencie to improv and dilate knowledg upon the grounds which hee might have suggested unto others of parts, and so the Librarie-rarities would not onely have been preserved in the spirits of men, but have fructified abundantly therein unto this daie, ...
— The Reformed Librarie-Keeper (1650) • John Dury

... can make good, those who tell you so. He maketh a solemn oath, among the ceremonies of that feast in which he first taketh upon him his authority, that he will diminish the faith of Christ, in all that he possibly can, and dilate the faith of Mahomet. But yet hath he not used to force every whole country at once to forsake their faith. For of some countries hath he been content only to take a tribute yearly and let them then live as they will. Out of some he taketh the whole people away, dispersing ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More

... States, where the wide diffusion of education was regarded as a prime necessity for the stability and success of republican institutions, and, therefore, was fostered with unceasing care. It was the theme on which the popular orator loved to dilate to a people on whose sympathies with the subject he could always confidently reckon. The practical mind of Dr. Ryerson, however, at once saw that the American idea of free schools was the true one. He moreover perceived that by giving his countrymen ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... my purpose to dilate on the universal destruction of so much that was beautiful, and that to Scots, however godly, should have been sacred. The tomb of the Bruce in Dunfermline, for example, was wrecked by the mob, as the statue ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... faithful; 't is their fate To have all feelings, save the one, decay, And every passion into one dilate. Lament ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various

... with the moon is also of pre-historic date, and not invented by the Egyptians. According to Plutarch, a cat placed in a lustrum denoted the moon, illustrating the mutual symbology. He supposes that this is because the pupils of a cat's eyes dilate and decrease with the moon. The reason most probably depends, as before intimated, on another phenomenon of periodicity corresponding to the month. Dr. Rae has, however, called my attention to another possible cause of the association, which is the fact that the cat's eyes glisten at ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... lie furthered, helped, and aided to all excellencie, to exquisite [Sidenote: Logike.] inuencion, and profounde knowledge, bothe in Logike and [Sidenote: Rhetorike.] Rhetorike. In the one, as a Oratour to pleate with all facili- tee, and copiouslie to dilate any matter or sentence: in the other to grounde profunde and subtill argument, to fortifie & make stronge our assercion or sentence, to proue and defende, by the [Sidenote: Logike.] force and power of arte, thinges ...
— A booke called the Foundacion of Rhetorike • Richard Rainolde

... a scholar, to read it a specialist. To know Rashi well is as difficult as it is necessary. Singularly enough, popular as he was, he was essentially a Talmudist, and at no time have connoisseurs of the Talmud formed a majority. This is the reason why historians like Graetz, though they dilate upon the unparalleled qualities of Rashi's genius, can devote only a disproportionately small number of pages ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber

... marshals who could plan a campaign under the hottest fire. Her blue eyes grew quite brilliant and seemed to take in everything. Some natural color shone where the cosmetics permitted, and her form seemed to dilate with something more than the mysteries of French modistes. ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... the neighbourhood of the clocks, which seemed in some non-understandable way to exercise an occult influence over him. At table he was an entertaining host; but neither there nor elsewhere would he discuss the family, or dilate in any way upon the peculiarities of a household of which he manifestly regarded himself as the least important member. Yet no one knew them better, and when Violet became quite assured of this, as well as of the futility of looking for explanation of any kind from ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green

... bigger man than the doctor," I thought, half angrily, "and yet the General will be a gay old bird as long as the gout permits him to hobble." And it seemed to me suddenly that the moral order, on which the doctor loved to dilate, had gone topsy-turvy while I stood on the General's porch. As if reading my thoughts the great man looked up at me, with his ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow

... proclaim that it was the best article of its sort in the settlement. His favorite orating-ground—in fact, the only theater for displays was the front of the village store, where, among the farmers who came in to dicker and purchase stores, he would dilate. Lincoln did not like the pompous little fellow whose rotund and diminutive figure was in glaring contrast to his own—a young man, but colossal, while his stature was augmented by ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams

... collection which supplied Roger of Wendover and Matthew Paris with materials for their famous histories. St. Alban's, indeed, was at one period perhaps the most noted of all the English centres of book production. To dilate on other centres, such as Westminster, Exeter, Worcester, Norwich, or York, would lead us too far afield for a mere handbook like the present. Enough has been said to give a good idea of what our English abbats ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley

... mysterious reappearance, Bertha, on going to the glades and climbing to the top of her favorite hill, found there an altogether unfamiliar object, the sight whereof made her two blue eyes dilate with wonder and delight. Beside the moss-grown tree trunk, where she always sat when up there, stood a small but exceedingly luxuriant bush, which must have been the growth of a single day, as she had not seen it there ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady

... your faultless suitability. From the exquisitely fit pearls about your neck to the scents of the wine and the flowers, all was as it should be. I watched your face warm with multifold impressions, your nostrils dilate with sensuousness, appreciation, your pagan head above the perfect bosom; about you the languid eyes ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick

... to thank Mrs. Grey—and your own goodness in sending the carriage for us. Ah, the delightful flowers!" said she, glancing at the table, and her nostrils seemed to dilate a little, as if she would welcome all their odors at once. "But the window, Leo—you will have the window open? London, it is perfectly beautiful this morning!—the air is sweet as of the country—oh, it is the gayest city in ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... Solomon's new-born friendship severely if he could have heard Mr. Balfour dilate upon this topic, which he did with such earnestness and fervor that the lad was soon convinced of those great expectations which the cautious reticence of his parents had so long concealed from him. On the other hand, ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... dilate upon the marvelous and winning pictures of life in Lichfield before the War between the States which Charteris has painted in his novels. "Even as the king of birds that with unwearied wing soars nearest to the sun, yet wears upon his breast the softest down,"—as we learn ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell

... Image always dilate's and widen's the Mind, and put's it upon the Stretch. It comprehends somewhat almost too big for it's Reach; and where the Mind is most stretch'd, the Image is most Sublime; if we consider no foreign Assistances. As Homer say's, The Horses of the Gods, sprung ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney

... recipes for terminating the siege at a single blow, if only their theories could be understood and their pockets be filled, were as prolific and as sanguine as in every age. But it would be as wearisome, and in regard to the history of human culture as superfluous, to dilate upon the technics of Targone and Giustianini, and the other engineers, Italian and Flemish, who amazed mankind at this period by their successes, still more by their failures, or to describe every assault, sortie, and repulse, every excavation, explosion, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... glories of rainbows and sunset clouds. Her whole nature was wrought upon by the sights and sounds of that gorgeous worship,—she seemed to burn and brighten like an altar-coal, her figure appeared to dilate, her eyes grew deeper and shone with a starry light, and the color of her cheeks flushed up with a vivid glow,—nor was she aware how often eyes were turned upon her, nor how murmurs of admiration followed all her absorbed, unconscious ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... the sheet from my hands and looked at the headlines. I saw his nostrils dilate, and his eyes flash. "Mobs? This paper is a mob! It is the worst of your mobs!" And it fell to the floor, and he put his foot on the ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair

... were attracted in her direction. Then the appetizing smell filled the coach, making the nostrils dilate and mouths water, while the jaws under the ears contracted painfully. The contempt of the ladies for this girl was becoming ferocious, developing into a desire to kill her or throw her, with her drinking cup, her basket ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... have already been made in previous chapters to the practice of revenge that it is not necessary to dilate upon it here. Suffice it to say that it is not only the right but the duty, often bequeathed by father to son, to obey this stern law. One who would allow a deliberate breach of his rights to pass without obtaining ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... the vast majority of our duties are so unequivocally thrust upon us that I have been able to touch so lightly, in the last section, upon the duties of the individual. Why dilate upon what everybody knows? Is it not enough to set ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton

... unnecessary to dilate further on this point; it will be better rather to dwell a moment on the causes and the effects of this singular phenomenon. The history of Rome has been and can be so rich, so manifold, so universal, because ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero

... meet them. His handsome house was ready, and, so said friends who had been invited to the housewarming, particularly well stocked as to larder and cellar. There was just one thing on which Gate City gossips were enabled to dilate that was not entirely satisfactory to Folsom's friends, and that was the new presiding ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King

... fruitful opportunities in the country. The Eskimos, one of the most interesting of primitive races, have still a firm foothold in the North—chiefly around the five stations of the Moravian Brethren, upon whose heroic work I need not now dilate. The Montagnais Indians roam the interior. They are a branch of the ancient Algonquin race who held North America as far west as the Rockies. They are the hereditary foes of the Eskimos, whole settlements of ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... presidents and reformers assure us that we are on the verge of a change, and perhaps a great change, in our system of higher education. They dilate upon the indisputable fact that most of our older colleges have made rapid strides within the past ten years, augmenting their endowments, erecting handsome buildings, establishing new departments of study and increasing the number of students. Harvard, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various



Words linked to "Dilate" :   enlarge, widen, illustrate, exemplify, clarify, expand, particularise, expatiate, detail, dilator, distend, elaborate, expound, dilation



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