flexible

Pluralflexibles

1. 1
   adjective

   Capable of being bent or twisted without breaking.

   The cable is flexible enough to wind tightly around the corners.

   Bamboo is surprisingly flexible, bending in strong winds without snapping.

   Similarpliable

   Oppositestiff, rigid, inflexible, brittle

   Note

   The physical sense is the one the word was built for: Latin flexibilis comes from flectō, "I bend," so the adjective means "bendable" at its root. Shakespeare uses it of wind bending the knees of knotted oaks in Troylus and Cressida. Pliable is its close partner. Its opposites split two ways: stiff and rigid resist bending, while brittle does not bend at all and breaks instead.

2. 2
   adjective

   Able to adapt or change to suit new or altered conditions and situations.

   The company offers flexible working hours to fit each employee's needs.

   Remote teams need flexible plans that adjust as priorities shift.

   Similaradaptable, adjustable, versatile, variable, accommodating

   Oppositerigid, fixed, inflexible

3. 3
   adjective

   Able to be adapted, adjusted, or reshaped to suit different needs or circumstances.

   The software is flexible, letting developers mold it to many tasks.

   Lawmakers wrote flexible rules that regulators could adapt over time.

   Similarmalleable, plastic

   Oppositerigid, inflexible, fixed

4. 4
   adjective

   Willing to give way to the influence of others; not stubborn or rigidly set in one's views.

   A flexible negotiator will yield on small points to win the larger deal.

   Voters saw him as too flexible, bending to whoever had spoken last.

   Similarmanageable, tractable

   Oppositestubborn, rigid, inflexible, obstinate

   Note

   Applied to people, bending becomes yielding to persuasion, pressure or the crowd. Older English joined it to what was yielded to with to: Francis Bacon's Essayes (1625) describe Phocion as "no ways flexible to the will of the people." Its synonyms tractable and manageable show the tilt. This is the flexibility of someone easily led, which sits closer to criticism than the adaptable sense does.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   In engineering and manufacturing, a material, product, or component that bends easily, such as the pouches and wraps of flexible packaging.

   The assembly uses a braided flexible to carry fluid across the moving joint.

   The company's packaging division makes mostly flexibles, such as pouches and wrapping films for food brands.

   Oppositerigid

   Note

   Trade shorthand turns the adjective into a noun for a class of goods. It belongs to engineering and manufacturing and is heard most in the plural. Terry McCrann, writing in the Herald Sun in 2009, says Alcan "is mostly flexibles," meaning the products behind flexible packaging. Outside the trade, the adjective usually stays attached to its noun, as in flexible packaging.

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