How to Use dilate in a Sentence

dilate

verb

• 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
• In the intensive care unit, his pupils were fixed and dilated, the suit states.
  — Ed Stannard, Hartford Courant, 4 June 2024
• 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
• Rest your head on your pet’s chest to check their heartbeat or look for signs that their pupil has dilated.
  — Simmone Shah, TIME, 9 July 2024
• 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
• During the exam, an optometrist will dilate your eyes (make the pupils of the eyes bigger with medicated eyedrops) to see how well light is refracted by your eyes.
  — Kelly Burch, Verywell Health, 11 July 2024

Last Updated: 22 Oct 2024