Definition of "dilate"

dilate

/daɪˈleɪt/

verb
third-person singular simple present dilates, present participle dilating, simple past and past participle dilated
1. (transitive) To enlarge; to make bigger.
2. (intransitive) To become wider or larger; to expand.
3. (transitive, intransitive) To speak largely and copiously; to dwell in narration; to enlarge; with "on" or "upon".
  Quotations
  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, published 1623, [Act I, scene i]
  But still they on their ancient joys dilate.
  1810, George Crabbe, The Borough
4. (medicine, transitive, intransitive) To use a dilator to widen (something, such as a vagina).
  Quotations
  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 results.
  1896, The Chicago Medical Recorder, 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 Leo Wolbarst, Gonorrhea in the Male: A Practical Guide to Its Treatment, page 148
  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, page 148
  It is important to realize that a number of these women do not want to have their vaginismus treated but only to achieve pregnancy. […] The use of hard plastic rods with increasing diameters, a sort of pseudopenis, can be useful, provided it is explained to the woman that these rods are not used to dilate her vagina but are a means of training the relaxation of her pelvic muscles and of getting these muscles under control.
  2012, Wolf Eicher, Götz Kockott, Sexology, Springer Science & Business Media

Definition of "dilate"

dilate

verb

Quotations

Quotations