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That expands, or may be expanded; extending; spreading; enlarging. Expanding bit, Expanding drill (Mech.), a bit or drill made adjustable for holes of various sizes; one which can be expanded in diameter while boring. -- Expanding pulley (Mach.), a pulley so made, as in sections, that its diameter can be increased or…

roach or of exit. "The avenues leading to the city by land." Macaulay. On every side were expanding new avenues of inquiry. Milman.

Expanding at the mouth; as, a bell-mouthed gun. Byron.

Expanding first at the summit, and later at the base, as a flower cluster.

own footstalk, and arising from different points of a common axis, the outermost blossoms expanding first, as in the hawthorn.

The act or process of changing or expanding an expression into another of equivalent value or meaning.

An instrument for expanding a part; as, a urethral dilator.

y system of bending forces. Rankine. -- Elastic fluids, those which have the property of expanding in all directions on the removal of external pressure, as the air, steam, and other gases and vapors. -- Elastic limit (Mech.), the limit of distortion, by bending, stretching, etc., that a body can undergo and yet retu…

Anything which causes expansion esp. (Mech.) a tool for stretching open or expanding a tube, etc.

The act of expanding or spreading out; the condition of being expanded; dilation; enlargement.

A bushing for expanding the end of a flue to fasten it tightly in the tube plate, or for partly filling up its mouth.

Expanding into flowers; blossoming.

a walk into a trot, or a trot into a walk. -- Fox wedge (Mach. & Carpentry), a wedge for expanding the split end of a bolt, cotter, dowel, tenon, or other piece, to fasten the end in a hole or mortise and prevent withdrawal. The wedge abuts on the bottom of the hole and the piece is driven down upon it. Fastening by f…

llic wind instrument, consisting of a long tube twisted into circular folds and gradually expanding from the mouthpiece to the end at which the sound issues; -- called in France cor de chasse. -- French leave, an informal, hasty, or secret departure; esp., the leaving a place without paying one's debts. -- French pie…

Having the form of a funnel, or tunnel; that is, expanding gradually from the bottom upward, as the corolla of some flowers; infundibuliform.

urn or revolution; a circuit. Quick and more quick he spins in giddy gyres. Dryden. Still expanding and ascending gyres. Mrs. Browning.

or combination of circles, of thin whalebone, metal, or other elastic material, used for expanding the skirts of ladies' dresses; crinoline; -- used chiefly in the plural. Though stiff with hoops, and armed with ribs of whale. Pope.

Salver-shaped; having a slender tube, expanding suddenly above into a bowl-shaped or spreading border, as in the blossom of the phlox and the lilac.

Swelling up; expanding.

observed in some volcanic rocks, as in rhyolitic lavas. It is supposed to be produced by expanding gas, whence the name.