to dilate
- verb
- /daɪˈleɪt/
- His eyes are dilating.
- dilated pupils
- dilated blood vessels
- dilated airways
I was expecting my pupils to be like super dilated and they weren't.
- I was expecting my pupils to be like super dilated and they weren't.
- The cold causes blood vessels to constrict and then dilate, which can improve blood flow.
- Is he, you know, dilating your pupils?
- Learn to dilate and contract your visual field consciously.
- Arginine does have the effect of of dilating arterioles and it basically increases blood supply.
- The heat itself causes blood vessels to dilate, which improves blood flow and oxygen throughout your body.
- They were convincing, giving people scans at their churches showing them that they needed like their blood vessels dilated or shunts put in their legs.
- And if you exercise regularly, you can dilate and make your blood vessels, including those in your brain, more elastic.
- And people forget, but the vascular system and how constricted or dilated vessels are is controlled by neurons, right?
- And then you've got to dilate it every day for a period of time to make sure it doesn't close in on itself and heal up.
- And then I went to the triage and they said, yeah, it's going to be at least a lot more hours, if not a few days to try and get some rest because I wasn't dilated.
- So it's like a metronome that's going faster when our gaze is dilated.
Examples
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In a few minutes, his pupil will dilate, allowing more light to pass through to the retina.
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Ms Sumner, your pupils are dilating.
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The pupils will dilate, making the eyes appear black.
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Your heart rate increases, your pupils dilate, you breathe faster...
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Your eyes dilate as the room snaps into focus.
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The heat itself causes blood vessels to dilate, which improves blood flow and oxygen throughout your body.
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Her pupils are dilated to approximately nine millimeters.
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Her pulse was erratic, her breathing shallow, her pupils dilated, her skin cold to the touch.
Fiction book (1992) -
Pupils fully dilated.
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The doctor explained how the eye drops will dilate the pupils to allow for a better examination.
Synonyms
To grow larger in size, amount, or importance
Make something longer or wider by pulling it
To make or become wider and include more things
To make something have more space from one side to the other so it fits or moves more easily
To make something bigger in size or amount
To swell because of pressure inside, for example a stomach or a balloon
To make something bigger, often in a joking way
Antonyms
How Wide
Surface Forms
Morphology
dilate = dilat + ate
Formed from the Latinate combining form 'dilat-' + the verb-forming suffix '-ate'; the meaning 'become wider' aligns with the historical stem but the stem is not a standalone English word, so learners cannot fully deduce it from common English bases.
Etymology
The word dilate comes from the Latin parts di- ('apart') and latus ('wide'), so it originally meant to 'make wide'. That's why to dilate is to become wider or more open, as when your pupils dilate in the dark.