bend
See also: Bend
English
Etymology
From Middle English benden, from Old English bendan (“to bind or bend (a bow), fetter, restrain”), from Proto-Germanic *bandijaną (“to bend”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰendʰ- (“to bind, tie”). Cognate with Middle High German benden (“to fetter”), Danish bænde (“to bend”), Norwegian bende (“to bend”), Faroese benda (“to bend, inflect”), Icelandic benda (“to bend”). More at band.
Pronunciation
- enPR: ĕnd, IPA(key): /bɛnd/
- (pin–pen merger) IPA(key): /bɪnd/
- Rhymes: -ɛnd
Verb
bend (third-person singular simple present bends, present participle bending, simple past and past participle bent or (archaic) bended)
- (transitive) To cause (something) to change its shape into a curve, by physical force, chemical action, or any other means.
- If you bend the pipe too far, it will break.
- Don’t bend your knees.
- (intransitive) To become curved.
- Look at the trees bending in the wind.
- (transitive) To cause to change direction.
- (Can we date this quote?) John Milton
- Bend thine ear to supplication.
- (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare
- Towards Coventry bend we our course.
- (Can we date this quote?) Walter Scott
- bending her eyes […] upon her parent
- (Can we date this quote?) John Milton
- (intransitive) To change direction.
- The road bends to the right
- (intransitive) To be inclined; to direct itself.
- (Can we date this quote?) John Milton
- to whom our vows and wishes bend
- (Can we date this quote?) John Milton
- (intransitive, usually with "down") To stoop.
- He bent down to pick up the pieces.
- (intransitive) To bow in prayer, or in token of submission.
- (Can we date this quote?) Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Each to his great Father bends.
- (Can we date this quote?) Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- (transitive) To force to submit.
- They bent me to their will.
- (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare
- except she bend her humour
- (intransitive) To submit.
- I am bending to my desire to eat junk food.
- (transitive) To apply to a task or purpose.
- He bent the company's resources to gaining market share.
- (Can we date this quote?) Temple
- to bend his mind to any public business
- (Can we date this quote?) Alexander Pope
- when to mischief mortals bend their will
- (intransitive) To apply oneself to a task or purpose.
- He bent to the goal of gaining market share.
- (transitive) To adapt or interpret to for a purpose or beneficiary.
- (transitive, nautical) To tie, as in securing a line to a cleat; to shackle a chain to an anchor; make fast.
- Bend the sail to the yard.
- (transitive, music) To smoothly change the pitch of a note.
- You should bend the G slightly sharp in the next measure.
- (intransitive, nautical) To swing the body when rowing.
Derived terms
terms derived from bend (verb)
Translations
to cause to shape into a curve
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to become curved
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to change direction
to be inclined; to direct itself
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to bow in prayer, or in token of submission
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to force to submit
to apply oneself to a task or purpose
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to tie a line
to change the pitch
to swing the body when rowing
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked
Noun
bend (plural bends)
- A curve.
- 1968, Johnny Cash, Folsom Prison Blues
- I hear the train a comin'/It's rolling round the bend
- 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 1, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:
- I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.
- There's a sharp bend in the road ahead.
- 1968, Johnny Cash, Folsom Prison Blues
- Any of the various knots which join the ends of two lines.
- 2012, Percy W. Blandford, Practical Knots and Ropework, page 67:
- A simpler version of the common bend with its ends in the same direction is used to join binder twine in a hay baling machine.
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- (in the plural, medicine, underwater diving, with the) A severe condition caused by excessively quick decompression, causing bubbles of nitrogen to form in the blood; decompression sickness.
- A diver who stays deep for too long must ascend very slowly in order to prevent the bends.
- (heraldry) One of the honourable ordinaries formed by two diagonal lines drawn from the dexter chief to the sinister base; it generally occupies a fifth part of the shield if uncharged, but if charged one third.
- 1968, Charles MacKinnon of Dunakin, The Observer's Book of Heraldry, pages 63-64:
- Perhaps the most celebrated coat of arms is that of Scrope, which is Azure a bend Or. This is the coat over which, from 1385 to 1390, Sir Robert le Grosvenor and Sir Richard le Scrope invoked the High Court of Chivalry to decide which of them had the right to bear these arms. Chaucer gave evidence before the court. In the end the arms were awarded to Scrope, and Grosvenor was ordered to difference with a bordure Argent. This he disdained to do, and being highly dissatisfied with the verdict he appealed to Richard II who altered the decision of the court by refusing to allow the bend to Grosvenor at all! Grosvenor then adopted a garb, or sheaf of corn.
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- (obsolete) Turn; purpose; inclination; ends.
- (Can we date this quote?) Fletcher
- Farewell, poor swain; thou art not for my bend.
- (Can we date this quote?) Fletcher
- In the leather trade, the best quality of sole leather; a butt; sometimes, half a butt cut lengthwise.
- (mining) Hard, indurated clay; bind.
- (nautical, in the plural) The thickest and strongest planks in a ship's sides, more generally called wales, which have the beams, knees, and futtocks bolted to them.
- (nautical, in the plural) The frames or ribs that form the ship's body from the keel to the top of the sides.
- the midship bends
- (music) A glissando, or glide between one pitch and another.
Derived terms
terms derived from bend (noun)
- around the bend
- bendlet
- bend sinister
- bendsome
- bendy
- drive somebody round the bend
- Fort Bend County
- Great Bend
- in bend
- sheet bend
- South Bend
- string bend
Translations
curve
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knot
decompression sickness
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heraldry: one of the ordinaries
best quality of sole leather
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hard, indurated clay
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked
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Related terms
Albanian
Etymology
From Proto-Indo-European *band (“drop”). Compare Phrygian βεδυ (bedu, “water”), Sanskrit बिन्दु (bindú, “drop”), Middle Irish banna, baina (“drop”) and possibly Latin Fōns Bandusiae.
Kurdish
Portuguese
Pronunciation
- (Brazil) IPA(key): /ˈbẽd͡ʒ/
Serbo-Croatian
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /bênd/
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