Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Lacking firmness, resilience, or muscle tone. See Synonyms at limp.
- adj. Lacking vigor or energy: flaccid management.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Soft and limber; lax; drooping by its own weight; without firmness or elasticity; flabby: as, flaccid flesh.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Yielding to pressure for want of firmness and stiffness; soft and weak; limber; lax; drooping; flabby.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. out of condition; not strong or robust; incapable of exertion or endurance
- adj. drooping without elasticity; wanting in stiffness
Etymologies
- Latin flaccidus, from flaccus, flabby.
Examples
“My guess is, the use of the word flaccid was no accident.”
“Well phil - shame you couldn't actually demonstrate in what way my logic was "flaccid" - or how things are "not going my way".”
On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with...
“First, I'm sure you are both flaco and flaccid, that is, skinny and limp.”
“And then be! 'slept with that creepy marketing director, Rick - or rather, we grope& never needed the condom lying on the nightstand, because "the big bruiser," as my date called his flaccid penis, went on strike, something it had never done, he assured me, ever.”
the secret sense
“I have to say his eggplants look kind of flaccid, not at all the full, glossy thing mine is, but the painting works its own still life magic.”
The Huffington Post: Ellen Kanner: Meatless Monday: Still, Life With Eggplant
“The New York Times critic dismissed Solar as one of McEwan's "lesser efforts" while the Washington Post called it "flaccid" and advised readers to "let Solar pass and wait for his next book to eclipse it".”
The Huffington Post: Ian McEwan: Americans Are 'Profoundly Bored' By Climate Change
“I am afraid the climax is still suffering from Vague Psychic Battle Syndrome, and the whole thing feels kind of flaccid and colorless right now, but it's written and that's what matters.”
“The word "flaccid" was never used when you referred to me.”
Jennifer and John Lehr: He Said, She Said: What Happens at Yaddo Doesn't Stay at Yaddo
“Lewis' Narnian Chronicles and Richard Adams' Watership Down in the mix, and calls Lloyd Alexander's writing "flaccid".”
“Even more than this kind of flaccid verbiage, my personal bugbear is the rhetoric of war, engineered to hide the truth: "collateral damage," "friendly fire," "transfer tubes," or "the excesses of human nature that humanity suffers" (such was Donald Rumsfeld's euphemism for the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib).”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘flaccid’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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cc
impeccable, accouterment, accoutrement, cc, access, baccivorous, desiccant, floccular, successor, occidental, laccolithic, laccolith and 143 more...
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my fab list
blowsabella, aperçu, froideur, salubrious, abject, gallipot, mumchance, wainscot, virago, macerate, lascivious, clandestine and 181 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( etymology )
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 837 more...
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The insulting ones
ingrate, sycophant, inane, wanton, pompous, vitriolic, ghastly, cesspool, abhor, highfalutin, obsequious, insidious and 25 more...
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See, it's hard and soft!
Words that contain both a "hard C" and a "soft C".
civic, accelerate, accent, vaccine, flaccid, accident, carapace, commonplace, crawlspace, cyberspace, accomplice, cockatrice and 14 more...
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Like to pronounce incorrectly
bologna, refrigerator, computer, ghoti, sorry, surprise, flaccid, chaos
rolig I have always pronounced this to rhyme with "acid", and I see that the New Oxford American Dictionary acknowledges both pronunciations. Nov 19, 2009
gman pronounced like "accident" Nov 19, 2009
reesetee Way to make things more interesting, SoG! Nov 11, 2007
chained_bear Or, you could resolve to make the stiffness tag somewhat useful rather than random, and tag everything that isn't stiff. Though it does seem a pretty good tag for random purposes. It will cause some head-scratching. ;)
May I suggest tagging baculum? Nevermind, I'll do it myself. :) Nov 11, 2007
sonofgroucho I'm going to make it my mission to tag some more words with "stiffness"---possibly completely at random. Nov 11, 2007
skipvia It might make more sense if there were other words tagged "stiffness," but this seems to be the only one.
For some reason it reminds me of a snippet from This is Spinal Tap:
"It's like, 'how much more black could this be?' and the answer is none. None more black." Nov 11, 2007
chained_bear But... but... ?! I still think it's a weird tag.
I think flaccid is an alsome word. It's way better than flabby. Nov 11, 2007
reesetee I'm not thinking about this. Nov 11, 2007
sonofgroucho It's a degree of stiffness: IE a small degree! Nov 11, 2007
chained_bear Wait... why would this word be tagged "stiffness"? What am I missing? Nov 10, 2007