bendable

English

Etymology

From 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^[1]:

     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, “Snow”, in The House of All Sorts:

     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 Steven R. Centola, editor, Echoes Down the Corridor, Viking, published 2000, page 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

Derived terms

• unbendable

Related terms

• bendability

Translations

able to be bent or flexed or twisted without breaking

• Dutch: buigbaar (nl)
• Finnish: taipuisa (fi), taipuva (fi)
• Hungarian: hajlítható (hu)
• 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

• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “bendable”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “bendable”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.