Make Your Point > Archived Issues > DISTEND
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pronounce
DISTEND:
Say it "diss TEND."
To hear it, click here.
connect this word to others:
As I was writing this issue, I stumbled, unprepared, on this disturbing example of the word distend in the Washington Post: "fingers distended like misshapen balloons."
Well, that's a nightmarish image, y'all. Here's one that's less horrifying. Right after Thanksgiving dinner, when you're suddenly all swollen in the middle: you've got a distended stomach. A food baby.
The word distended means the same thing, more or less, as swollen, stretched, bloated, dilated, t_m_id, and t__gid.
Could you recall those last two? We most often apply them to language that's all swollen or puffed-up with too many fancy words.
(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)
definition:
The word "distend" has Latin roots that mean "to stretch apart." You can see how it's related to other words about stretching, like "tendon," "tendril," and "tension."
To distend something is to stretch it out, usually by putting pressure on it from the inside.
And, when something distends, it becomes stretched out or swollen outwards, due to pressure from the inside.
That's the literal meaning. And figuratively, when something distends, it becomes weird or unnatural, as if it's swelling or stretching out.
grammatical bits:
Part of speech:
Verb, usually the intransitive kind: "his face distends," "her fingers distended."
Sometimes the transitive kind: "they distended the image across the entire screen;" "They distended a short novel into three feature-length films."
Other forms:
Distended, distending;
distension;
distensible/distensile, distensibility.
how to use it:
This word has a negative tone: it calls to mind bloated, painful, deeply unhealthy body parts.
Although we can say that something distends, or that one thing distends another thing, most of the time we use the past participle: "distended."
We often talk literally about distended faces, fingers, stomachs, and whole bodies.
And to get figurative, we can talk about distended voices, sounds, images, representations, stories, episodes, novels, movies, memories, etc. When we call something like this distended, we're implying that it's unnatural, unwholesome, or unhealthy, as if something inside it is growing or stretching beyond its own limits.
examples:
"A teenage gymnast...wakes up one morning to find her normally flat, washboard stomach bloated and distended as if she were pregnant."
— Lisa Sanders, New York Times, 5 September 2013
"Billions of years from now, there will be a last perfect day on Earth. Thereafter the Sun will slowly become red and distended, presiding over an Earth sweltering even at the poles. The Arctic and Antarctic icecaps will melt..."
— Carl Sagan, Cosmos, 1980
"But 'Tag,' unlike too many of its recent ilk, at least bothers to be a movie, rather than a television sketch distended to feature length."
— A. O. Scott, New York Times, 14 June 2018
has this page helped you understand "distend"?
study it:
Explain the meaning of "distend" without saying "bloat" or "distort."
try it out:
In the New York Times, James Poniewozik wrote that we're living in "an era of TV gigantism," and that "ambitious shows distend their episodes like a Yes double album.*"
Talk about an example of what he means. Can you think of a TV episode that seems distended: stretched and bloated, way too long or way too intense? Or, can you think of an entire TV series, movie series, or book series that's distended: stretched on for way too long, bloated with something way too intense or weird?
*What are Yes double albums, and why are they so distended? Wikipedia reports that Yes, a British rock band, is known for its double albums, each "a symbol of...progressive rock excess," with "detailed concept[s] and lengthy songs."
before you review, play:
Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.
Our game last month was "Polygon of Predestination!"
With a high five to TheWordFinder.com for its puzzle generator, I Pat-Sajacked that spin-the-wheel game from TV. You applied your alliterative acumen to solve the puzzle. The category all month long was: "Beastly Blunders and Criminal Capers."
From the previous issue:
According to Martha Stewart Weddings, wearing white to a wedding--therefore potentially detracting attention from the bride--has been a known no-no since 1840, when white became the most popular color for the bride's dress.
Next up, our new game for July! "Faces & Feelings."
If the word you're studying were a facial expression, what would it look like? Maybe one of the seven universal facial expressions, the ones identified by the psychologist Paul Ekman. I've used some memes to illustrate them:
In each issue, take a handful of words and assign each to an emotion it inspires. I'll list my answers at the bottom of each issue. Yours might be different from mine, which is okay--words, and emotions, are complex and personal! The goal here is just to interact with our words, to tie them more securely into memory by connecting them to emotion and to the face.
Try this set today. Match each face on the left to a term on the right:
abhorrent
abject
afterclap
alarums and excursions
altercation
annus mirabilis
antediluvian
review this word:
A. SHIFT.
B. SHRIVEL.
C. SHORTEN.
2. In awarding a Cartoonist Studio Prize to Keren Katz, Jacob Brogan writes for Slate, "Like dispatches from another dimension, Katz's drawings distend the _____ of the comics page, much as desire _____ the imagination."
A. humor .. feeds
B. ordinary geometry .. contorts
C. typical cast of characters .. inspires
a final word:
I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.
I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.
From my blog:
36 ways to study words.
Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
To be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.
Disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.
As I was writing this issue, I stumbled, unprepared, on this disturbing example of the word distend in the Washington Post: "fingers distended like misshapen balloons."
The word "distend" has Latin roots that mean "to stretch apart." You can see how it's related to other words about stretching, like "tendon," "tendril," and "tension."
Part of speech:
This word has a negative tone: it calls to mind bloated, painful, deeply unhealthy body parts.
"A teenage gymnast...wakes up one morning to find her normally flat, washboard stomach bloated and distended as if she were pregnant."
Explain the meaning of "distend" without saying "bloat" or "distort."
In the New York Times, James Poniewozik wrote that we're living in "an era of TV gigantism," and that "ambitious shows distend their episodes like a Yes double album.*"
Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.
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