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






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Distend" Quotes from Famous Books



... one case, which I saw, a considerable quantity of calcareous earth, and afterwards of bone-ashes, and of decoction of madder, and also of sublimate of mercury, were given without effect. All the bones became soft, many of them broke, and the patient seemed to die from the want of being able to distend her chest owing to the ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... not decline to take her whither she desired to go. Gently swaying the blade, he sent the boat within the dark opening, which appeared to distend its jaws to swallow the canoe and them from the world to ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis

... 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 centre of ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... refused to move one yard in the direction indicated. Old Martin, much puzzled, now hesitated whether to exert his absolute authority, or to defer to the contumacious obstinacy of Shagram, and was not greatly comforted by his wife's observation, who, seeing Shagram stare with his eyes, distend his nostrils, and tremble with terror, hinted that "he surely saw ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... knees. Your muscles will be unable to support you, and you will fall to your back. You will find it impossible to breathe, for the muscles of your chest will distend the ribs. And in your struggles, you will break bones. And you will tear your body to bits. ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole

... P.H. Jones's possession, the males had generally the largest eye-wattles; Mr. Esquilant also believes in this rule, but Mr. H. Weir, a first-rate judge, entertains some doubt on the subject. Male Pouters distend their crops to a much greater size than do the females; I have, however, seen a hen in the possession of Mr. Evans which pouted excellently; but this is an unusual circumstance. Mr. Harrison Weir, a successful breeder of prize Fantails, informs me that his ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin

... muscle requires strengthening. Because of its tendency to raise blood pressure and weaken cardiac muscle, tobacco is entirely forbidden at Nauheim, except in a few individual instances, and then the amount allowed is a minimum one. Large amounts of liquid are not allowed because they distend the stomach, raise the blood pressure and increase the pumping ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.

... skin soft and delicate; their limbs finely turned; their hair jetty, perfumed and ornamented with flowers; but we did not think their features beautiful, as by continual pressure from infancy, which they call tourooma, they widen the face with their hands, distend their mouth, and flatten the nose and forehead, which gives them a too masculine look; and they are in general large, and wide over the shoulders; we were therefore disappointed in the judgment, we had formed from the report of preceding visitors; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... the first time. They were black, with enormous, knotted, open trunks, swelling with great excrescences, and the foliage was sparse. These were olive trees which had stood for centuries, which had never been pruned, in which age robbed the sap from the branches to distend the trunk with the protuberances of a slow and painful circulation. The region looked like the deserted studio of a sculptor littered with thousands of shapeless bulks, with monsters scattered ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... 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

... she must be wounded either on the under part of her body or through her mouth by a weapon which will pierce her liver, the seat of life. It will be noted in this connection that Merodach achieved success by causing the winds which followed him to distend the monster's jaws, so that he might be able to inflict the fatal blow and prevent her at the same time from uttering ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... combines, And in thy Visage grav'd those ghastly Lines. Like Plagues, like Death thy ranc'rous Arrows fly, At Good and Bad, at Friend and Enemy. To thy own Breast recoils the erring Dart, Corrupts thy Blood, and rankles in thy Heart. There swell the Poisons which thy Breast distend, And with the Load thy Mountain Shoulders bend. Horrid to view! retire from human Sight, Nor with thy Figure pregnant Dames affright. Crawl thro' thy childish Grot, growl round thy Grove, A Foe to Man, an Antidote to ...
— Two Poems Against Pope - One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope and the Blatant Beast • Leonard Welsted

... nature especially luxuriates. The man who really reposes, enjoys a happiness which is as general as it is indefinable; his arms sink by their own weight, his fibres distend, his brain becomes refreshed, his senses become calm, and his sensations obtuse. He wishes for nothing, he does not reflect, a veil of gauze is spread before his eyes, and in a few moments he will ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin

... one's heart good to see the thirsty oxen rush into a pool of delicious rain-water, as this was. In they dash until the water is deep enough to be nearly level with their throat, and then they stand drawing slowly in the long, refreshing mouthfuls, until their formerly collapsed sides distend as if they would burst. So much do they imbibe, that a sudden jerk, when they come out on the bank, makes some of the water run out again from their mouths; but, as they have been days without food too, they ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... not to laugh when the following circumstance was mentioned the other day in our hearing: A lady, whose little child had by accident partaken of something which it was feared would inflame or distend its bowels, was awakened in the night by the bursting of a yeast-bottle, in an adjoining closet. "Husband!" she exclaimed "get up! get up! BETSEY has exploded! I heard her explode this minute!"—and nothing short of lighting a candle, and going to the apartment where the little ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... Where the pressure is a ton or more to the square inch, it is very evident that no sound vibration can exist. Near the surface it is otherwise. The majority of fishes have no lungs and of course no vocal chords, but certain species, such as the drumfish, are able to distend special sacs with gas or air, or in other ways to produce sounds. One variety succeeds in producing a number of sounds by gritting the teeth, and when the male fish is attempting to charm the female by dashing round her, spreading ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe

... no valves. Thirdly, arteries are generally deeply set, while many of the veins run near the surface of the body. Those on the front of the arm are specially visible. Place your thumb on them and run it along towards the wrist, and you will notice that the veins distend owing to the closing of ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams

... his Thoughts. There are others of the Moderns who rival him in every other part of Poetry; but in the Greatness of his Sentiments he triumphs over all the Poets both Modern and Ancient, Homer only excepted. It is impossible for the Imagination of Man to distend itself with greater Ideas, than those which he has laid together in his first, [second,] and sixth Book[s]. The seventh, which describes the Creation of the World, is likewise wonderfully Sublime, tho not so apt to stir up Emotion in the Mind of the Reader, nor consequently so perfect ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... clothing from below and disposed it in his hammock in such a way as to distend it to the shape of a human body; then he threw over all the light cotton sheet he used to draw over himself when sleeping on deck. Having done this, he loaded his two revolvers and clambered into one of the boats the Sissie carried right aft, ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad

... used, the gluten, by its glue-like properties, catches and retains the air for a short period; and if heat is applied before the air, which is lighter than the dough, rises and escapes, it will expand, and in expanding distend the elastic glutinous mass, causing it to puff up or rise. If the heat is sufficient to harden the gluten quickly, so that the air cells throughout the whole mass become firmly fixed before the air escapes, ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... no salts, being soft and cool, and consisting of parts that are easily divided and formed into chyle without giving any labor to the digestive powers, it has not that force to open the lacteals, to distend their orifices and excite them to an unnatural activity, to let them pass too great a quantity of hot and rank chyle into the blood, and so overcharge and inflame the lymphatics and capillaries, which is the natural and ordinary effect of animal food; and therefore cannot so readily ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott

... dignity, the man with the red tie said: "Put your other foot on it." I'm afraid if I don't eat potatoes again, my stomach will shrivel so that I will never be able to sit through a course dinner when I get back. Potatoes distend it all right—I feel like I have swallowed one wing of Fleischman's yeast factory whenever I eat them. You have to come down on the meat with such force to make any impression on it, that more gets pushed up between your teeth than goes down your ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr

... propitious—he instantly found His ten toes distend and take root in the ground; His back was a stem, and his belly was bark, And his hair in green leaves overshadow'd ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various

... the clouds are rolling heavy, Fitful gusts distend his sail; See the whirlpool's foaming eddy, Hear the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various

... sang at the top of their voices in the clear morning air. Each time they stopped to take breath, the "serpent" continued its bellowing alone, and as he puffed out his cheeks the musician's little gray eyes disappeared, and the skin of his forehead and neck seemed to distend. ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... superiority of size. [expansion of the universe] big bang; Hubble constant. V. become larger &c. (large &c. 192); expand, widen, enlarge, extend, grow, increase, incrassate[obs3], swell, gather; fill out; deploy, take open order, dilate, stretch, distend, spread; mantle, wax; grow up, spring up; bud, bourgeon[Fr], shoot, sprout, germinate, put forth, vegetate, pullulate, open, burst forth; gain flesh, gather flesh; outgrow; spread like wildfire, overrun. be larger than; surpass &c. (be superior) 33. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... to aim at, take care of; tend'ency; attend' (-ance, -ant); contend'; distend'; extend'; intend' (literally, to stretch to), to purpose, to design; portend' (literally, to stretch forward), to presage, to betoken; pretend' (literally, to stretch forth), to affect, feel; subtend', to extend under; superintend' ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton

... perfection and energy which every one feels to be the internal type of all that he loves, admires, and would become. The imagination is enlarged by a sympathy with pains and passions so mighty that they distend in their conception the capacity of that by which they are conceived; the good affections are strengthened by pity, indignation, terror, and sorrow; and an exalted calm is prolonged from the satiety of this high exercise of them into the tumult of familiar ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... this motion is to still further excite and still more distend all the organs involved. Normally, the motion grows faster and faster, the strokes becoming as long as the length of the organs will possibly permit without separating them. The flow of the lubricating fluids, from both organs, becomes more and more copious, till, all at once, the orgasm, ...
— Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living • H.W. Long

... to see her." She felt the instant relief in his voice. He could talk now, could distend his nerves in the warm air of her sympathy. "I had to identify her." He rose nervously and began to pace the room. "It's knocked the wind out of me. I—my God! I couldn't foresee it, could I?" He halted before her with outstretched hands ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton

... right, the powerfully divided lips of that pleasure-thirsty channel received him. He hesitated a little; then, settled well in the passage, he makes his way up the straights of it, with a difficulty nothing more than pleasing, widening as he went so as to distend and smooth each soft furrow: our pleasure increasing deliciously, in proportion to our points of mutual touch increased in that so vital part of me which I had now taken him, all indriven, and completely sheathed; and which, crammed ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... whole is nearly removed, or until you can see the brilliant colour shining through what remains in the cavity—better leave a little too much than be too nice in clearing all away; then, with a blowpipe, distend the empty abdomen; it will very soon become firm, and retain its original form, but until it is so the blowing must be ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne

... twenty inches in these lakes. The methy is another common fish; it is the Gadus lota, or burbot, of Europe. Its length is about two feet, its gullet is capacious and it preys upon fish large enough to distend its body to nearly twice its proper size. It is never eaten, not even by the dogs, unless through necessity but its liver and roe ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin

... before. But he had never run like that before, at any rate since his illness. He had to fight for air, he thought he was going to choke. But at last he was able to breathe again more comfortably; now he had not to distend his nostrils and pant for breath any more. He could enjoy the feeling of ease and comfort that gradually came over ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig

... transforming to beast. Magian worship they paid to their sun, Lord of the Purse! Behold him climb. Stalked ever such figure of fun For monarch in great-grin pantomime? See now the heart dwindle, the frame distend; The soul to its anchorite cavern retreat, From a life that reeks of the rotted end; While he—is he pictureable? replete, Gourd-like swells of the rank of the soil, Hollow, more hollow at core. And for him did the hundreds toil Despised; in the cold ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... would gladly attend, for it passes even the liberal bounds of poetic license, but we have already spent all the time we can upon the New Poem, and we must decline (in Mr. Beckett's own impressive language) any further "to distend the title." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various



Words linked to "Distend" :   bloat, dilate, distension, swell, distensible, tumesce, widen, distention, tumefy



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