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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



... disorder, fearful of rebellion. But to Isaac Hecker, the only external note which deeply attracted him was that of universal brotherhood. If he were to bow his knee with joy to Jesus Christ, it would be because all, in heaven and earth or hell, should one day bend in union ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... understand honour; how should it? The Caucus is chiefly made up of men who sand their sugar, put alum in their bread, forge bayonets and girders which bend like willow-wands, send bad calico to India, and insure vessels at Lloyd's which they know will go to the bottom before they have been ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... wanted to know. This young man understood how to bend the will of others, even the will of a sick mind, to his own desires. The little silent scene he had watched had lasted just the length of time it had taken the detective to walk through the room and hold out his hand ...
— The Case of The Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study • Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner
... equal to the burthen suddenly descending upon its shoulders. Instead of despair there had been constancy. Instead of distracted counsels there had been heroic union of heart and hand. Rather than bend to Rome and grovel to Philip, it had taken its sovereignty in its hands, offered it successively, without a thought of self-aggrandizement on the part of its children, to the crowns of France and Great ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... should not an old man be merry too, when the great sea is at play with those little children? I delight, also, to follow in the wake of a pleasure-party of young men and girls strolling along the beach after an early supper at the Point. Here, with handkerchiefs at nose, they bend over a heap of eel-grass entangled in which is a dead skate so oddly accoutred with two legs and a long tail that they mistake him for a drowned animal. A few steps farther the ladies scream, and the gentlemen make ready to protect them against a young ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne


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