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/dɪˈstɛnd/ · verb
(intransitive) To extend or expand, as from internal pressure; to swell.
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.
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?
Use distend when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.
Distend means (intransitive) To extend or expand, as from internal pressure; to swell.
Common synonyms include swell, dilate, swell up.
The opposite depends on the specific sense.
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.
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