Word of the Day Archive
Sunday May 29, 2005
pliant \PLY-uhnt\ , adjective:
1. Easily bent or flexed; supple; pliable; adaptable.
2. Easily influenced; yielding readily to others.
His structures are rigid in substance as well as appearance; hers are pliant in both.
-- Robert Storr, "Gego's galaxies", Art in America, June 2003
They differ significantly . . . in that they are painted in the bright hues of the original toys, thus losing the vital contradiction between an obviously rigid metal surface and the sculptural illusion of pliant plastic.
-- Eleanor Heartney, "Jeff Koons at Sonnabend", Art in America, May 2004
Broadly speaking, Skinner saw personality as a blank slate, pliant and ripe for conditioning.
-- Andrew Stuttaford, "Chick-Tac-Toe", National Review, December 23, 2002
Her first step was to flatter her pliant husband into her way of thinking.
-- Giovanni Boccaccio, Famous Women edited and translated by Virginia Brown
Pliant comes from the present participle of Old French plier, "to fold, to bend," from Latin plicare. It is related to ply, "to fold over or twist together."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for pliant
