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Prolixity; diffuse discourse. [Obs.] "What needeth greater dilatation" Chaucer.

cell or minute cavity in the walls of the air tubes of the lungs; the air sac of birds; a dilatation of the air vessels in insects.

The varicose dilatation of the spermatic vein.

The rhythmical expansion or dilatation of the heart and arteries; -- correlative to systole, or contraction.

The act of dilating, or the state of being dilated; expansion; dilatation. Mrs. Browning. At first her eye with slow dilation rolled. Tennyson. A gigantic dilation of the hateful figure. Dickens.

An instrument for measuring the dilatation or expansion of a substance, especially of a fluid.

A dilatation of a hollow organ or of a canal.

an Italian anatomist of the 17th century. Malhighian capsules or corpuscles, the globular dilatations, containing the glomeruli or Malpighian tufts, at the extremities of the urinary tubules of the kidney. Malpighian corpuscles of the spleen, masses of adenoid tissue connected with branches of the splenic artery.…

A long-continued or excessive dilatation of the pupil of the eye.

Causing dilatation of the pupil. -- n.

One of the dilatations of the body wall of Bryozoa in which the ova sometimes undegro the first stages of their development. See Illust. of Chilostoma.

Capable of, or taking place by, alternate contraction and dilatation; as, the systaltic action of the heart.

Dilatation of the capillary vessels.

A uneven, permanent dilatation of a vein.

Having the power of breathing impaired by the rupture, dilatation, or running together of air cells of the lungs, so that while the inspiration is by one effort, the expiration is by two; affected with pulmonary emphysema or with heaves; -- said of a horse. Youatt.