distending

Verb

distend (third-person singular simple present distends, present participle distending, simple past and past participle distended)

1. (intransitive) To extend or expand, as from internal pressure; to swell
   • Then came the arrowy flight and form of the hurricane itself—its actual bulk—its imbodied power, pressing along through the forest in a gyratory progress, not fifty yards wide, never distending in width, yet capriciously winding from right to left and left to right.1835, William Gilmore Simms, The Partisan, Harper, Chapter XIV, page 180
2. (archaic, reflexive, transitive) To extend; to stretch out; to spread out.
   • These impure and frail matters are conteined within the angust concave of the Lunar Orb, above which with uninterrupted Series the things Celestial distend themselves.1661, Thomas Salusbury, System of the World in Four Dialogues, translation of Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems by Galileo Galilei, Dialogue II, page 241
3. (transitive) To cause to swell.
4. To cause gravidity.