Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Not yielding; inflexible: an unbending will to dominate.
- adj. Aloof and often antisocial; extremely reserved: an unbending manner.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Not suffering flexure; not bending.
- Unyielding; inflexible; firm.
- n. A relaxing; remission from a strain; temporary ease.
- Given up to relaxation or amusement.
Wiktionary
- adj. inflexible and not yielding
- adj. very reserved, aloof and antisocial
- v. present participle of unbend.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Not bending; not suffering flexure; not yielding to pressure; stiff; -- applied to material things.
- adj. Unyielding in will; not subject to persuasion or influence; inflexible; resolute; -- applied to persons.
- adj. Unyielding in nature; unchangeable; fixed; -- applied to abstract ideas.
- adj. rare Devoted to relaxation or amusement.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. incapable of adapting or changing to meet circumstances
Examples
“Constance had been wondering how she could inform Tony that his aunt and sister had arrived, without unbending from the dignified silence of the past three days.”
“But the Alexandrine, by its pause in the midst, is a tardy and stately measure; and the word unbending, one of the most sluggish and slow which our language affords, cannot much accelerate its motion.”
“At various times Lady Huntingdon expressed her religious experience in verse, and the manful vigor of her school of faith recalls the unbending confidence of Job, for she was not a stranger to affliction.”
“Strict, kind of unbending fundamentalist religions is the way they were both brought up.”
“Tensions had escalated after an "unbending" Gqozo had refused to allow the marchers into Bisho and the ANC had insisted that they be allowed to continue the march.”
“Essie Tisdale had no notion that Van Lennop had overheard her quarrel with the Frenchman, but her quick perceptions recognized an added friendliness in his manner -- a kind of unbending gentleness which was new -- and she needed it for she daily felt the growing lack of it in people whom she had called her friends.”
“Symes moved among his satellites with that benign unbending which is a recognized attribute of the truly great.”
“The process of "unbending" was being performed in the summer-house, whither he had retired after Evelyn and Ralph had started on their afternoon's ride to Vandon, in which he had refused to join.”
“If the principal, instead of being a public man, is a man of science, this kind of unbending becomes certainly not the less welcome to him.”
“The disadvantage is that if taken too far this kind of unbending hubris is a one-way ticket to failure.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘unbending’.
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Autantonyms
Words with mutually exclusive double meanings. Also, here are some:
QUASI-AUTANTONYMS: slow up/slow down; bar/debar; bone/debone; burn up/burn down; fat chance/slim chance; fill in/fil...clip, cleave, sanction, handicap, fast, jibe, secrete, aloha, bimonthly, bolt, cheerio, commencement and 139 more...
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Chicanery
honorific, cellar, chicanery, font, tautology, antistrophe, profligate, cringing, spittle, plutocrat, busking, fallacy and 8 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for unbending.
seanahan Also, when you bend a straight line, you get an L. When you unbend it, you are again bending it. Feb 1, 2007
oroboros Contronymic in the sense: unyielding vs. remove a bend. Jan 31, 2007