• IPA: /daɪˈleɪt/

dilate (dilates, present participle dilating; past and past participle dilated)

1. (transitive) To enlarge; to make bigger.

   The eye doctor put drops in my eye to dilate the pupil so he could see the nerve better.

2. (intransitive) To become wider or larger; to expand.

   His heart dilates and glories in his strength.

3. (ambitransitive) To speak largely and copiously; to dwell in narration; to enlarge; with "on" or "upon".
   • c. 1594, William Shakespeare, “The Comedie of Errors”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act I, scene i]:

     Do me the favour to dilate at full / What hath befallen of them and thee till now.

   • But still on their ancient joys dilate.

4. (medicine, ambitransitive) To use a dilator to widen (something, such as a vagina).
   • 1896, The Chicago Medical Recorder, page 62:

     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.

   • 1911, Abraham Leo Wolbarst, Gonorrhea in the Male: A Practical Guide to Its Treatment, page 148:

     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.

   • 2010, Kehinde Adeola Ayeni, Feasts of Phantoms, Fisher King Press (ISBN 9780981393926), 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.

   • 2012, Wolf Eicher, Götz Kockott, Sexology, Springer Science & Business Media (ISBN 9783642737947)

     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.

• French: dilater
• German: dilatieren, weiten
• Portuguese: dilatar
• Russian: расширя́ть
• Spanish: dilatar

• French: se dilater
• Portuguese: expandir
• Russian: расширя́ться
• Spanish: dilatarse