different between distend vs inflate

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /d??st?nd/
• Rhymes: -?nd

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
   • 1975', Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift [Avon ed., 1976, p. 147]:

     I begin to hate the theater, the feeling wickedly distended by histrionics, all the old gestures, clutchings, tears, and applications.

2. (transitive, reflexive, archaic) To extend; to stretch out; to spread out.
   • 1662 Thomas Salusbury, Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (Dialogue 2):

     I begin to hate the theater, the feeling wickedly distended by histrionics, all my old gestures, clutchings, tears, and applications. 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.
3. (transitive) To cause to swell.
4. (biology) To cause gravidity.

Derived terms

• distensible

Translations

References

• John A. Simpson and Edward S. C. Weiner, editors (1989) , “distend”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, ?ISBN

Anagrams

• destin'd

French

Verb

distend

1. third-person singular present indicative of distendre

English

Etymology

From Latin ?nfl?tus, from the verb ?nfl?.

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) enPR: ?n-fl?t', IPA^(key): /?n?fle?t/
• Rhymes: -e?t

Verb

inflate (third-person singular simple present inflates, present participle inflating, simple past and past participle inflated)

1. (transitive) To enlarge an object by pushing air (or a gas) into it; to raise or expand abnormally
   • 1782, John Scott of Amwell, An Essay on Painting

     When passion's tumults in the bosom rise, / Inflate the features, and enrage the eyes.

2. (intransitive) To enlarge by filling with air (or a gas).

3. (figuratively) To swell; to puff up.
   • ?, Alfred Tennyson, Merlin and Vivien

     Inflate themselves with some insane delight.

4. (transitive, computing) To decompress (data) that was previously deflated.

Antonyms

• deflate

Derived terms

• inflated
• inflatingly

Related terms

• inflation

Translations

Latin

Participle

?nfl?te

1. vocative masculine singular of ?nfl?tus

Adverb

?nfl?t? (comparative ?nfl?tius, superlative ?nfl?tissim?)

1. haughtily, proudly, pompously

References

• inflate in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• inflate in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• inflate in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• inflate in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette