inelastic

A decade ago, FiveThirtyEight editor-in-chief Nate Silver introduced the concept of “elastic” and “inelastic” states, which refers to how sensitive a state is to changes in the national political environment and the relative swinginess of the state.

However, Georgia is also a state with a racially polarized electorate that is, as we say, “highly inelastic” because it just doesn’t have a lot of swing voters.

This gives Georgia what we at FiveThirtyEight call an “inelastic” electorate, or an electorate for which factors like the political environment and candidate traits are unlikely to sway voters because so few voters are swing voters.

The difficulty is assuming that a lung transplant is "inelastic".

Things can be more or less inelastic, which is to say, that demand can be more or less responsive to changes in price.

The last glass of water in a desert is the quintessential inelastic good; people will pay all they have to get it.

From the point of view of cover, the gold certificate is completely inelastic.

It was inelastic, incompetent to adapt itself to changing circumstances.

Catching sight of his Captain on the platform, the Doctor bent his steps thither, and they were slow and inelastic.

At the same moment we heard the fall 220 of something heavy and inelastic in the upper story.

It is not permitted to discriminate; it can neither relax nor repress; it is absolutely inelastic.