Distends

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To expand in size or volume from internal pressure or forces acting upon it
2. To increase in size or volume by stretching outward due to pressure from within
3. To become enlarged or stretched by something pushing from the interior

Etymology: "Distends" is the third-person singular form of "distend," which English borrowed directly from Latin "distendere," meaning "to stretch apart." The Latin verb combines "dis-," meaning "apart" or "asunder," with "tendere," "to stretch," the same root behind "tension," "tendon," and "tent," which was pitched by stretching cloth taut over poles. The image is literal: something pulled outward from the inside until its surface strains. English kept that physical sense intact. A distended stomach, bladder, or vein swells because pressure builds within it, and the word has never drifted far from that concrete picture of a container straining against its contents. Its ancestry is a neat set of pulls and pushes, separating the parts of a thing while stretching them outward.

Synonyms: swells, inflates

Antonyms: deflates, shrinks