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Bend   /bɛnd/   Listen
noun
Bend  n.  
1.
A turn or deflection from a straight line or from the proper direction or normal position; a curve; a crook; as, a slight bend of the body; a bend in a road.
2.
Turn; purpose; inclination; ends. (Obs.) "Farewell, poor swain; thou art not for my bend."
3.
(Naut.) A knot by which one rope is fastened to another or to an anchor, spar, or post.
4.
(Leather Trade) The best quality of sole leather; a butt. See Butt.
5.
(Mining) Hard, indurated clay; bind.
6.
pl. (Med.) Same as caisson disease. Usually referred to as the bends.
Bends of a ship, the thickest and strongest planks in her sides, more generally called wales. They have the beams, knees, and foothooks bolted to them. Also, the frames or ribs that form the ship's body from the keel to the top of the sides; as, the midship bend.


Bend  n.  
1.
A band. (Obs.)
2.
(Her.) One of the honorable ordinaries, containing a third or a fifth part of the field. It crosses the field diagonally from the dexter chief to the sinister base.
Bend sinister (Her.), an honorable ordinary drawn from the sinister chief to the dexter base.


verb
Bend  v. t.  (past & past part. bent; pres. part. bending)  
1.
To strain or move out of a straight line; to crook by straining; to make crooked; to curve; to make ready for use by drawing into a curve; as, to bend a bow; to bend the knee.
2.
To turn toward some certain point; to direct; to incline. "Bend thine ear to supplication." "Towards Coventry bend we our course." "Bending her eyes... upon her parent."
3.
To apply closely or with interest; to direct. "To bend his mind to any public business." "But when to mischief mortals bend their will."
4.
To cause to yield; to render submissive; to subdue. "Except she bend her humor."
5.
(Naut.) To fasten, as one rope to another, or as a sail to its yard or stay; or as a cable to the ring of an anchor.
To bend the brow, to knit the brow, as in deep thought or in anger; to scowl; to frown.
Synonyms: To lean; stoop; deflect; bow; yield.


Bend  v. i.  (past & past part. bent; pres. part. bending)  
1.
To be moved or strained out of a straight line; to crook or be curving; to bow. "The green earth's end Where the bowed welkin slow doth bend."
2.
To jut over; to overhang. "There is a cliff, whose high and bending head Looks fearfully in the confined deep."
3.
To be inclined; to be directed. "To whom our vows and wished bend."
4.
To bow in prayer, or in token of submission. "While each to his great Father bends."





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Bend" Quotes from Famous Books



... of it; with this exception it is white, as are also the belly, vent, and under tail-coverts. The crown of the head and hinder part of the neck are a dingy brown, which on the neck has a shade of ash colour; the bend of the wing and lesser wing-coverts are a brownish black; the whole upper surface of the plumage is of a glossy brownish-green, which is spotted on the middle wing-coverts with minute white spots, that change to a dingy yellow on the back, scapulars, and tertials, the last of which ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... had been subject to violent nauseas and acute pains, and as she bade him goodbye out of the railway-carriage window, she had to bend and press herself against it. And feeling he must encourage her he ran along the platform till the train began to leave him behind, and he stopped out of breath with a cloud of melancholy upon his cheeks, generally so restful in a happy animalism—yet the fat hand lifted the big-brimmed black ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... some of the stinging things she had chosen to say to him that night during their discussion of his play, and to be conscious of a certain amount of irritation because of the effrontery of her present pose, assuming as it did that he would eventually bend to her will, endure all manner of insolence and indignity, because he hoped she ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... the natural resources of the hills and forests, the first rude mill was located on that wide sweeping bend of the river. About this industrial beginning a settlement gathered. As the farm lands of the valley were developed, the railroad came, bringing more mills. And so the town grew up around ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... generously, or even forbearingly of an enemy, rouses my indignation as often as I recur to it; and in Professor Wilson, I have long satisfied myself that it takes its rise from a more comprehensive weakness, the greatest in fact which besets his mind, viz. a general tendency to bend to the prevailing opinion of the world, and a constitutional predisposition, to sympathise with power and whatsoever is triumphant. Hence, I could not but regret most poignantly the capital opportunity I had forfeited of throwing in a deep and stinging sarcasm ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey--Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey


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