bend

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments  · 
“
At the top of the bend is a 150m-long tunnel that runs beneath Stoney Point Park, popular with climbers for its large boulders.

View all »
Definitions (91)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (27)

  1. transitive verb To bring (something) into a state of tension: bend a bow.
  2. transitive verb To cause to assume a curved or angular shape: bend a piece of iron into a horseshoe.
  3. transitive verb To force to assume a different direction or shape, according to one's own purpose: "Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events” (Robert F. Kennedy).
24 more from this dictionary »

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (48)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (4)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (12)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

  • There was a slight stoop of the shoulder—that bend which is almost always a characteristic of studious men. —  Three Years in Europe
  • As they rounded the river bend, the word went back and forth from man to man, and soon all were craning their necks, reddened or dark-tanned as the case might be, as they strained to see the sight. —  Dragon's Gold
  • Here's something I haven't written about in a long time - bend, my custom written CLI PHP5 scripts to rip and encode TV shows. —  wonkablog
  • You need to make the bend perpendicular and angled a bit outwards from the "V" Also notice that the bend is an "acute" angle. —  Original Signal - Transmitting Buzz
  • At the top of the bend is a 500-foot long tunnel that runs beneath Stoney Point Park, popular with climbers for its large boulders. —  The Orange County Register - Homepage
More examples »
 

Tags

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 240 times.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Add a related word »
Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

curve ·  twist ·  turn ·  slope ·  sweep ·  stretch ·  arc ·  angle ·  dip ·  loop ·  swing ·  valley

Used in the same contextWord Family

bend:   bends ·  bent ·  bending
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (6)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. Middle English benden, from Old English bendan; see bhendh- in Indo-European roots.
  2. Middle English, from Old English bend, band, and from Old French bende, bande, band (of Germanic origin; see bhendh- in Indo-European roots).

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (4)

  1. from Middle English bend, from Anglo-Saxon bend, rarely bænd, feminine and masculine (= Old Saxon bendi = OFries. bende = Old Dutch bende = Gothic (Moesogothic) bandi), a band, bond, fetter; cognate with *band, English band, from bindan (preterit band), bind: see band. Bend is practically identical with band, the two being partly merged in use with the closely related pair band, bend. In senses 4–11 bend is modern, from the corresponding verb: see bend, v.
  2. from Middle English benden, from Anglo-Saxon bendan, bind, fetter, restrain, bend a bow (= Middle High German benden, fetter, = Icelandic benda = Swedish bända = Danish bænde, bend; cf. Old French bender, modern F. bander, tie, bind, bend, hoodwink, = Provencal bendar = Spanish Portuguese vender, bind, hoodwink, = Italian bendare, hoodwink), properly fasten with a bend or band, from bend, English bend, a band, the noun being practically identical with band, n. The nouns and verbs of these groups (band, bend, band, bend, etc.) reacted on each other both in Teutonic and Roman, developing a variety of senses which have a double reference.
  3. from Middle English bend, bende, partly from Anglo-Saxon bend, a band used as an ornament (a sense of bend, English bend); partly from Old French bende, modern F. bande = Provencal benda = Spanish Portuguese venda and banda = Italian benda, banda, from Middle Latin benda, binda, from Old High German binda, a band, fillet, tie, mixed with Middle Latin (etc.) banda, from Old High German bend, etc.: see band. Bend is thus in part historically identical with bend, but in part with band. The separation is now merely formal.
  4. from late Middle English bende, from Old French bende, variant of bande, a band: see band.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »
/bɛnd/
by American Heritage

Charts
frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word a few times a week.

Recently looked up

homophone · Lose · wanderlust · wont · CHL

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

ultimatum · pew · deadpool · sad panda · nom nom nom