Definition of "expansile" [ex•pan•sile]

• Of, relating to, or capable of expansion. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Upon this fact the mechanism of respiration mainly depends; and we may see a still further proof of this in the circumstance that, when the thoracic parietes are pierced, so as to let the external air into the cavity of the pleura, the lung collapses and the thoracic side ceases to exert an expansile influence over the lung."
• "When the inspiratory thorax gains space from the abdomen, or when space is demanded for the increasing bulk of the alimentary canal, or for the enlarging pregnant uterus; or when, in consequence of disease, such as dropsical accumulation, more room is wanted, then the abdominal chamber supplies the demand by the anterior bulge or swell of its expansile muscular parietes."
• "They differed from the last variety mainly in the more localised nature of the tumour, the greater firmness of its walls, and the more pronounced expansile pulsation."