different between grow vs distend

English

Etymology

From Middle English growen, from Old English gr?wan (“to grow, increase, flourish, germinate”), from Proto-Germanic *gr?an? (“to grow, grow green”), from Proto-Indo-European *g?reh?- (“to grow, become green”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /????/, [??????]
• (US) IPA^(key): /??o?/, [???o??]
• Rhymes: -??

Verb

grow (third-person singular simple present grows, present participle growing, simple past grew or (dialectal) growed, past participle grown or (dialectal) growed)

1. (ergative) To become larger, to increase in magnitude.

2. (ergative, of plants) To undergo growth; to be present (somewhere)

3. (intransitive) To appear or sprout.

4. (intransitive) To develop, to mature.

5. (transitive) To cause or allow something to become bigger, especially to cultivate plants.
   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:grow.

6. (copulative) To assume a condition or quality over time.
   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:grow.

7. (intransitive, obsolete) To become attached or fixed; to adhere.
   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:grow.

Antonyms

• shrink

Derived terms

Translations

References

• grow at OneLook Dictionary Search

Middle English

Verb

grow

1. Alternative form of growen

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