dilation
/daɪˈleɪʃən/noun
dilation is spelled D-I-L-A-T-I-O-N. The wrong spelling people search most is dialation: about 330 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 2 in 10 of all searches for the word. Dilation is a noun meaning “The act of dilating”. The plural of dilation is dilations.
How many letters and syllables are in dilation?
| Letters | 8: D-I-L-A-T-I-O-N |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 1 million words; the 33,636th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, dialation, about 330 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Rhymes with |
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 dilation?
Dilation is spelled D-I-L-A-T-I-O-N. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 2 in 10 of the searches for dilation in either form.
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 dilation?
Dilation appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 33,636th 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 dilation?
- US /daɪˈleɪʃən/
Dilation has 3 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-dilation.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with dilation?
The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as dilation from its last stressed vowel (/eɪʃən/):
- situation
- association
- population
- administration
- operation
- organization
- application
- location
- generation
- foundation
- conversation
- investigation
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 dilation
- dilations plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does dilation mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The act of dilating.
- 2
State of being dilated; expansion; dilatation.
- 3
obsoleteDelay.
- 4
In morphology, a basic operation (denoted ⊕) that usually uses a structuring element for probing and expanding the shapes contained in the input image.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Dilation in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense act of dilating:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | dilatation |
| Portuguese | dilatação |
| Spanish | dilatación |
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 dilation come from?
From dilate + -ion, late 16th c.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).