pliant
Pronunciation
  • IPA: /ˈplaɪənt/
Adjective

pliant

  1. Capable of plying or bending; readily yielding to force or pressure without breaking
    • 1917, The National Geographic Magazine April 1917, The Warblers of North America
      Whether in its northern or southern home, the black-throated blue warbler builds its nest of bark, roots, and other pliant material, loose and rather bulky, in a variety of saplings, bushes, and weeds, but always a few inches or a few feet from the ground.
    Synonyms: flexible, pliable, lithe, limber, plastic
    a pliant thread  pliant wax
  2. (figuratively) Easily influence#Verb|influenced; tractable.
    • 1594, Christopher Marlowe, Edward II (play), London: William Jones,
      I must haue wanton Poets, pleasant wits,
      Musitians, that with touching of a string
      May draw the pliant king which way I please:
    • 1605, Francis Bacon, “The First Booke”, in The Tvvoo Bookes of Francis Bacon. Of the Proficience and Aduancement of Learning, Diuine and Humane, London: Printed [by Thomas Purfoot and Thomas Creede] for Henrie Tomes, […], OCLC 932932554 ↗, folio 11, recto ↗:
      [A]nd it is without all controuerſie, that learning doth make the minds of men gentle, generous, maniable, and pliant to gouernment; whereas Ignorance makes them churlish[,] thwart, and mutinous; [...]
    • 1839, William Gilmore Simms, “The Brooklet” in Southern Passages and Pictures, New York: George Adlard, p. 2,
      Yet there was pleasant sadness that became
      Meetly the gentle heart and pliant sense,
      In that same idlesse—gazing on that brook
    • 1988, A. J. Langguth, Patriots,
      [The king] had a pliant prime minister and a general who was telling him what he wanted to hear.
Translations
  • Russian: пода́тливый
Translations
  • Russian: уступчивый



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