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PlainSpell

dilate

/daɪˈleɪt/verb

dilate is spelled D-I-L-A-T-E. The wrong spelling people search most is dialate: about 370 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 4 in 10 of all searches for the word. Dilate is a verb meaning “To enlarge; to make bigger”.

How many letters and syllables are in dilate?

Letters6: D-I-L-A-T-E
Syllables2 (from its American pronunciation)
In writingabout once in every 4 million words; the 56,788th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched1; the most searched, dialate, about 370 Bing searches a month (all of them)
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How do you spell dilate?

Dilate is spelled D-I-L-A-T-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 4 in 10 of the searches for dilate in either form.

dilatethe right spelling640 searches a month
dialatean extra a370 searches a month

Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.

How common is dilate?

Dilate appears about once in every 4 million words in written English, the 56,788th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce dilate?

  • /daɪˈleɪt/
  • /ˈdaɪ.leɪt/

Dilate has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-dilate.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What rhymes with dilate?

No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as dilate.

Spelled with the same letters in another order: detail, tailed.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of dilate

  • dilates present, singular, he/she/it
  • dilating participle, present
  • dilated participle, past
  • delate
  • deleate
  • dylate
  • more dilate comparative
  • most dilate superlative

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does dilate mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

verb

  1. 1

    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. 2

    To become wider or larger; to expand.

    His heart dilates and glories in his strength.

  3. 3

    To speak largely and copiously; to dwell in narration; to enlarge; with "on" or "upon".

  4. 4

    To use a dilator to widen (something, such as a vagina).

  5. 5

    obsoleteTo delay, defer.

  6. 6

    obsoleteTo prolong, lengthen.

adjective

  1. 1

    archaicobsoleteCarried in different ways, spread, abroad, dispersed, published.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Dilate in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchdilater (to enlarge; to make bigger), se dilater (to become wider or larger; to expand)
Germandilatieren, weiten, vergrößern, erweitern, dehnen (to enlarge; to make bigger), sich weiten (to become wider or larger; to expand)
Portuguesedilatar (to enlarge; to make bigger), expandir (to become wider or larger; to expand)
Spanishdilatar (to enlarge; to make bigger), dilatarse (to become wider or larger; to expand)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does dilate come from?

First attested in 1393, in Middle English; inherited from Middle English dilaten, from Old French dilater, from Latin dīlātō (“to spread out”), from dī- + lātus (“wide”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix). Doublet of dilatate.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after dilate