How to Use dilate in a Sentence

dilate

verb
Definition of dilatenext
Synonyms for dilatenext
  • The drug dilates the blood vessels.
  • The drug causes the blood vessels to dilate.
  • During labor, a woman's cervix will dilate to about 10 centimeters.
  • The pupils dilate, and there’s a change in the position of the lens in the eye.
    — Jessica Wapner, Scientific American, 16 Nov. 2020
  • The breath quickens, the pupils dilate, the heart begins to pound.
    — Diana Kwon, Scientific American, 12 Sep. 2019
  • The drug made Mildred’s pupils dilate and the hair on her arms stand on end.
    — Washington Post, 21 Dec. 2017
  • The idea is that this dilates his blood vessels, and when the bag is removed, his brain gets a burst of oxygen.
    — Brendan Borrell, Slate Magazine, 22 Sep. 2017
  • Your pulse quickens, your pupils dilate, your hairs stand on end.
    — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 24 Nov. 2021
  • Walcott’s free verse dilates upon the places the images evoke for him.
    — Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, The New Yorker, 12 Jan. 2017
  • If that occurs, most of the time the cervix will stop dilating and the baby will not descend into the birth canal.
    — Julie Mazziotta, PEOPLE.com, 7 Mar. 2018
  • The next time my midwife came to check me, I was fully dilated.
    — The Cut, 29 June 2017
  • So she was assigned a bed and told to hurry up and dilate—and was left largely on her own to do so.
    — Ian Johnson, The New York Review of Books, 4 June 2020
  • Her nose presses against the grate, her eyes still dilated from the narcotics, blinking in the harsh light.
    — S.e. Smith, Longreads, 2 Nov. 2017
  • Your doctor will dilate your pupils to look behind them.
    — Kaitlyn Pirie, Good Housekeeping, 2 Apr. 2020
  • The drug is still widely considered effective when it is used in surgery and to dilate the eyes.
    — Christina Jewett, BostonGlobe.com, 12 Sep. 2023
  • To watch the series and the documentary is to dilate, helplessly, on what has changed (or not) in the past 30 or so years.
    — New York Times, 26 Mar. 2021
  • To send more blood to the skin’s surface, the heart beats faster and blood vessels dilate to accommodate more blood flow.
    — Dominique Mosbergen, WSJ, 20 July 2022
  • My partner had started to dilate at 29 weeks and our babies were born at 36 weeks.
    — Amber Leventry, Longreads, 29 June 2018
  • Alcohol also make the blood vessels in your body dilate, so the heat goes right up through your skin.
    — USA TODAY, 2 Feb. 2018
  • The pupils of our eyes constrict and dilate in parallel with the other person’s.
    — Geoff Colvin, Fortune, 10 Aug. 2020
  • The feeling had to do with that ability to somehow dilate time.
    — John Von Sothen, Bon Appetit, 19 Jan. 2017
  • The feeling had to do with that ability to somehow dilate time.
    — John Von Sothen, Bon Appetit, 19 Jan. 2017
  • The thinking at the time was that loss of serotonin caused blood vessels to lose tone and dilate, bringing on migraine pain.
    — R. Allan Purdy, Scientific American, 1 May 2017
  • Then, about four minutes in, the song dilates into a dirty masterclass in trap hop.
    — Spin Staff, SPIN, 13 Dec. 2023
  • But Sanders was more inclined to reflect on the challenge of finding a good reed than to dilate on his legacy.
    — Nathaniel Friedman, The New Yorker, 12 Jan. 2020
  • During pregnancy, as the body prepares to give birth, the cervix begins to dilate or open from the pressure.
    — Amirah Vann, Glamour, 10 Dec. 2020
  • The kicker in this study is that Platt studied their eyeballs and pupils, and when they were dilated, a deal was more likely.
    — Neil Senturia, San Diego Union-Tribune, 27 Nov. 2023
  • Zhukovskyy was unsteady on his feet and his pupils were dilated, Dorris said.
    — Matt Rocheleau, BostonGlobe.com, 27 June 2019
  • An exam revealed that his pupils were dilated in the bright daylight, and his heart rate was a little low.
    — Dawn Filos, Philly.com, 12 Jan. 2018
  • Within a half-hour to a couple of hours, the misoprostol leads the cervix to dilate and the uterus to begin contracting, which empties the embryo from the uterus.
    — Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY, 7 May 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'dilate.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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