# bends

Pronunciation: say "BENDZ" /bɛndz/

## Verb

1. Third-person singular simple present of bend. — third-person singular simple present indicative of bend
   - Simple: Third-person singular present tense of bend. Use this form with he, she, or it.
   - _He bends the wire into a neat loop._
   - _The river bends around the old mill before widening._

## Noun

2. Plural of bend. — plural of bend
   - Simple: Plural of bend. Use this when you mean more than one bend or curve.
   - _The river has several tight bends before it reaches the sea._
   - _Cyclists braked hard on the steep bends._
3. Decompression sickness, a disorder caused by dissolved gases forming bubbles in the body when surrounding pressure drops too quickly.
   - Simple: A painful sickness that divers get when they come up from deep water too fast.
   - _After ascending too rapidly, the diver developed the bends and needed a recompression chamber._
   - _Several crew members suffered the bends during the deep salvage operation._
4. The thickest and strongest planks running along the sides of a wooden ship, also called wales.
   - Simple: The thickest, strongest wooden boards along the sides of an old sailing ship.
   - _Shipwrights fitted the bends from seasoned oak to strengthen the hull._
   - _The vessel's bends had weathered decades of storms without splitting._

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/bends (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).