Distended is how we describe something that has already swollen from pressure inside — or the act, in the past, of making it do that. Doctors write it about a belly, a bowel, a bladder, sometimes a vein. A distended abdomen looks or feels too full, tight, or rounded. The word is the past form of distend, and in everyday English it works mostly as an adjective: the swollen state, not the action happening now. It is a hospital-and-textbook word. At the dinner table people say bloated or puffed up. Though actually, distended does not always mean danger; after a huge meal a stomach can be a little distended and still be fine. The point is the shape and the inside pressure, not the drama. It is not the same as extended, which means made longer.