distend

1. (intransitive) To extend or expand, as from internal pressure; to swellExamples: "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."; "I begin to hate the theater, the feeling wickedly distended by histrionics, all the old gestures, clutchings, tears, and applications."intransitive

2. (transitive, reflexive, archaic) To extend; to stretch out; to spread out.Examples: "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."; "But say, what mean those coloured streaks in heaven / Distended as the brow of God appeased?"archaicreflexivetransitive

3. (transitive) To cause to swell.transitive

4. (biology) To cause gravidity.