bendable

bendable

English

Etymology

bend +‎ -able

Adjective

bendable (comparative more bendable, superlative most bendable)

1. Able to be bent or flexed or twisted without breaking.
   • 1912, E. Nesbit, chapter 6, in The Magic World‎:

     It was quite a shock to find when one stroked her that the China Cat, though alive, was still china, hard, cold, and smooth to the touch, and yet perfectly brisk and absolutely bendable as any flesh and blood cat.

   • 1944, Emily Carr, The House of All Sorts, "Snow,"

     The father scorned stooping. Neither his body nor his mind was bendable.

   • 1974, Arthur Miller, "The Limited Hang-Out: The Dialogues of Richard Nixon as a Drama of the Antihero" in Echoes Down the Corridor, edited by Steven R. Centola, Viking, 2000, p. 145,

     When necessity dictates, our laws are as bendable as licorice to our presidents, and if their private conversations had been taped an awful lot of history would be different now.

Synonyms

• flexible
• pliable
• pliant

Antonyms

• rigid

Related terms

• bendability

Translations

able to be bent or flexed or twisted without breaking

Finnish: taipuisa (fi), taipuva (fi) Hungarian: hajlítható Icelandic: beygjanlegur Manx: so-lhoobey, so-chammey Portuguese: dobrável Russian: сгибаемый (ru) (sgibajemyj) Spanish: articulable, flexible (es) Swedish: böjbar (sv) Vietnamese: co the uon cong

Further reading

• bendable in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911
• bendable at OneLook Dictionary Search