dilate

/daɪˈleɪt/

dilate verb: to enlarge; to make bigger.

Image: Rapidreflex, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb (1)

dilate (third-person singular simple present dilates, present participle dilating, simple past and past participle dilated)

(transitive) To enlarge; to make bigger.
- The eye doctor put drops in my eye to dilate the pupil so he could see the nerve better.
(intransitive) To become wider or larger; to expand.
- His heart dilates and glories in his strength.
Antonyms:

contract
(ambitransitive) To speak largely and copiously; to dwell in narration; to enlarge; with "on" or "upon".
- Do me the favour to dilate at full / What hath befallen of them and thee till now.c. 1594 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Comedie of Errors”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
- But still they on their ancient joys dilate.1810, George Crabbe, The Borough
(ambitransitive) To use a dilator to widen (something, such as a vagina).
- An experimenter in New York has recently advocated what he is pleased to call temporary forcible dilatation of the trachea in the treatment of membranous croup, his idea being to introduce into the trachea a dilator and to forcibly dilate, every few hours if need be, and he reports favorable...1896, “Society Proceedings”, in The Chicago Medical Recorder, volume 10, page 62
- In very tight and obstinate stricture I sometimes dilate every day, but as soon as it has been stretched up to 23 or 24, I dilate every other day, or at greater intervals, keeping the instrument in place several minutes.1911, Abraham Wolbarst, Gonorrhea in the Male: A Practical Guide to Its Treatment, page 148

Verb (2)

dilate (third-person singular simple present dilates, present participle dilating, simple past and past participle dilated)

(obsolete, transitive) To delay, defer.
- Without more time delated.1556, John Heywood, The Spider and the Fly, lii. 19
(obsolete, transitive) To prolong, lengthen.
- A […] way to dilate a remembrance beyond the banks of Forgetfulness.1658, Francis Osborne, Advice to a Son

Adjective

dilate (comparative more dilate, superlative most dilate)

(archaic, obsolete) Carried in different ways, spread, abroad, dispersed, published.
- Returne the lords this voyce, we aré their creature :
  And it is fit, a good, and honeſt prince,
  Whom they, out of their bounty, haue inſtucted
  With ſo dilate, and abſolute a power,
  Should owe the office of it, to their ſeruice ;
  And good of all, and euery citizen.1603 (first performance; published 1605), Beniamin Ionson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “Seianus his Fall. A Tragœdie. […]”, in The Workes of Beniamin Ionson (First Folio), London: […] Will[iam] Stansby...

dilate meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

dilate in Tamil

பரப்பு, விரிவாக்கு, குழல் விரிவு, தளர்த்தல், விரித்தல், விரிவு

dilate in Bengali

প্রসারিত করা, বিস্তার করা, বিস্তৃত করা, বিস্তৃত হওয়া, বড় করা, বড় হওয়া

dilate in Malayalam

കണ്ണ് വലുതാക്കുക, ദീർഘമായി പ്രതിപാദിക്കുക, ദീർഘീകരിക്കുക

More languagesFewer languages

dilate in Kannada: ಹಿಗ್ಗು, ಉಬ್ಬು, ಕಿಸಿ, ಹಿಗ್ಗಿಸು

Examples of dilate in a sentence

Houellebecq’s men[…] dilate lovingly upon the makes and models of cars and appliances, and the subsidiary brands of hospitality and conglomerates.2024 October 24, Judith Shulevitz, “Michel Houellebecq Has Some Fresh Predictions. Be Afraid.”, in The Atlantic:
He gave her some of the dilators he used to dilate her vagina shortly after the surgery and encouraged her to do it frequently.2010, Kehinde Adeola Ayeni, Feasts of Phantoms, Fisher King Press, →ISBN, page 148:

All 13 example sentences with dilate

Antonyms of dilate

contract

Forms of dilate

Verb
third-person singular present	dilates
present participle	dilating
past participle	dilated
past	dilated
alternative form	delate
alternative form	deleate
alternative form	dylate
Adjective
comparative	more dilate
superlative	most dilate

Past tense of dilate: dilated

Origin of dilate

First attested in 1393, in Middle English; inherited from Middle English dilaten, from Old French dilater, from Latin dīlātō (“to spread out”), from dī- + lātus (“wide”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix). Doublet of dilatate.

First attested in 1399, in Middle English; inherited from Middle English dilaten (“to delay, tarry”), borrowed from Latin dīlātus, perfect passive participle of Latin dīfferō (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)). If so, Doublet of defer and differ; see also infer, relate and refer, collate and confer, delate and defer, as well as prefer and prelate among others. Alternatively, from Latin dīlātō, see Etymology 1.

First attested in 1471, in Middle English; borrowed from Latin dīlātus, see -ate (adjective-forming suffix) and Etymology 2 for more.

Words formed from dilate

Words that rhyme with dilate

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about dilate

What does dilate mean?: Dilate means to enlarge; to make bigger.
What is dilate in Tamil?: Dilate in Tamil is பரப்பு, விரிவாக்கு, குழல் விரிவு. See Dilate meaning in Tamil.
How do you use dilate in a sentence?: Houellebecq’s men[…] dilate lovingly upon the makes and models of cars and appliances, and the subsidiary brands of hospitality and conglomerates.
What part of speech is dilate?: Dilate can be a verb or an adjective.
How do you pronounce dilate?: Dilate is pronounced /daɪˈleɪt/.
What is the past tense of dilate?: The past tense of dilate is dilated.

Words near dilate in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: dilate (page history and authors); dilate (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dilate (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dilate (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dilate (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dilate (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-dilate.wav.

Cite this entry: “dilate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dilate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.