What's the difference between flexible and pliant?

Flexible


Definition:

  • (a.) Capable of being flexed or bent; admitting of being turned, bowed, or twisted, without breaking; pliable; yielding to pressure; not stiff or brittle.
  • (a.) Willing or ready to yield to the influence of others; not invincibly rigid or obstinate; tractable; manageable; ductile; easy and compliant; wavering.
  • (a.) Capable or being adapted or molded; plastic,; as, a flexible language.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Many speak about how yoga and surfing complement each other, both involving deep concentration, flexibility and balance.
  • (2) Results on resting blood pressure, serum lipids, vital capacity, flexibility, upper body strength, and vertical jump tests were comparable to values found for the sedentary population.
  • (3) This suggests that S1 is a flexible protein with at least two domains that can rotate independently.
  • (4) A more current view of science, the Probabilistic paradigm, encourages more complex models, which can be articulated as the more flexible maxims used with insight by the wise clinician.
  • (5) With improved monitoring, the use of smaller, more flexible endoscopes, and more experience, routine general anesthesia in children less than 3 years of age, as recommended in the past, may not be mandatory.
  • (6) Flexibility and integration of approaches may be advantageous and hypnosis, including regression and reframing, may be especially powerful in the treatment of phobics.
  • (7) The drug orientation and the DNA orientation (reflecting flexibility) are observed to vary differently and nonmonotonically with binding ratio, suggesting specific binding and varying site geometries.
  • (8) Extraction tools included flexible, telescoping sheaths advanced over the lead to dilate scar tissue and apply countertraction, deflection catheters, and wire basket snares.
  • (9) Flexibility is essential so that the appropriate technique or agent can be selected for a particular pediatric ICU patient.
  • (10) The flexible adaptation of psychosomatic aspects to the current needs of dermatologists was found most important.
  • (11) Lenses with inserted flexible open loops (e.g., Dubroff) have only been implanted in small series, but the results have been quite good.
  • (12) The presence of aspartic acid and asparagine residues in other conformations, such as those in partially denatured, conformationally flexible regions, may lead to more rapid succinimide formation and contribute to the degradation of the molecule.
  • (13) Eight alpha-helices behave as relatively rigid bodies and corner regions are more flexible, showing larger fluctuations.
  • (14) We interpret the high resistance of this protein to urea as reflecting a reduced flexibility of its structure at normal temperatures which should be correlated to the thermophilic origin of this protein.
  • (15) We argue that the power and flexibility of computer simulation as a technique for dealing with uncertainty and variability is especially appropriate in the case of HIV and AIDS.
  • (16) A one-way analysis of variance showed that there were no significant differences in flexibility of the five fixation constructs (P greater than .05).
  • (17) All patients with distal polyps detected during flexible sigmoidoscopy underwent colonoscopy.
  • (18) A small helix is identified at the carboxy terminus of A2 which emerges through the central pore of the B subunits and probably comes into contact with the membrane upon binding, whereas the A1 subunit is flexible with respect to the B pentamer.
  • (19) These observations strongly suggest that (i) GCN4 specifically recognizes the central base pair, (ii) the optimal half-site for GCN4 binding is ATGAC, not ATGAG, and (iii) GCN4 is a surprisingly flexible protein that can accommodate the insertion of a single base pair in the center of its compact binding site.
  • (20) New laws to give parents more flexible leave and strong commitments to family-friendly working hours will be among the headline measures.

Pliant


Definition:

  • (v.) Capable of plying or bending; readily yielding to force or pressure without breaking; flexible; pliable; lithe; limber; plastic; as, a pliant thread; pliant wax. Also used figuratively: Easily influenced for good or evil; tractable; as, a pliant heart.
  • (v.) Favorable to pliancy.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But it helped that he faced only one opponent, that a pliant local media portrayed support for Sisi as a patriotic duty, and that the election came amid a continuing crackdown on all forms of opposition.
  • (2) For these sites thin and pliant fasciocutaneous flaps are ideal tissue transfers, and we favour the radial forearm flap which is raised from the distal volar forearm.
  • (3) In several instances in which preadenoidectomy mechanical obstruction of the Eustachian tube was not demonstrated, the tube appeared to have been made more pliant by the operation.
  • (4) "For the most part the rewards for acquiescing to GOC demands are risible: pomp-full dinners and meetings and, for the most pliant, a photo op with one of the Castro brothers.
  • (5) The chancellor, George Osborne, and health secretary Jeremy Hunt would be very happy to devolve these political hot potatoes to pliant and cash-strapped local bodies.
  • (6) Putin also said outside forces would use intelligence services, the media and non-governmental organisations to destabilise Russia and make it "pliant in deciding issues in favour of the interests of other governments".
  • (7) "For 40 years the tobacco companies were able to persuade pliant politicians within their grip to tell the public what they wanted them to tell them, and for 40 years the tragedy continued," Gore told ABC TV's 7.30 program from Los Angeles on Wednesday night.
  • (8) President Asif Ali Zardari has vowed to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaida, but cuts an increasingly forlorn figure because he is seen as too pliant to the US in a country where anti-American sentiment is high.
  • (9) Like maths and music, languages sink in faster and deeper before concerns about sex and jobs besiege the pliant brain.
  • (10) If one interrupts that sort of pliant texture operatively-unless their is an urgent indication-unprofitable results must be expected, which correspond to orthopedic experiences.
  • (11) While the fashion press and the beauty industry remain invested in the idea of young women as pliant, affable and terminally anxious about getting boys to like them, real women and girls are fighting back against a culture that persists in trying to present our desires and rebrand our politics as fluffy and marketable.
  • (12) Those courts once had a reputation for independence, but that changed under Mubarak, who made changes to personnel and to the rules on the appointment of judges which over time left mainly pliant men on the bench, ready either to take “guidance” on cases or to accommodate what they imagined would be the government’s desires.
  • (13) Critics have accused Erdogan of seeking to diminish the importance of the Turkish parliament and also seeking to make the independent judiciary far more pliant.
  • (14) Some fear his next move will be to go after Jega, the electoral chief, and replace him with someone more pliant.
  • (15) The distal flap is thin and pliant due to the small amount of subcutaneous tissue and the fairly long vascular pedicle.
  • (16) It is a comfortable-seeming thing, flexible without being adjustable, giving without being pliant.
  • (17) To keep its grip, the regime uses its network of personal and official ties to Britain’s too pliant monarchy, to gullible congressional politicians, and to business and investment leaders overly impressed by its $1tn (£660bn) in cash reserves and its global investment portfolio.
  • (18) Tolokonnikova has also continued to appeal against her guilty verdict through the Moscow court system, and is one step away from it reaching the country's pliant supreme court.
  • (19) For several years the Liberal Democrat side of the government, in which I served as Nick Clegg’s national security adviser, staved off the woefully unevidenced plan (hawked around Westminster by pliant ministers since 2008) for new powers to force internet companies to retain highly personal communications data (aka the “snooper’s charter”).
  • (20) The British media may be attacked for the weakness of its investigative reporting and the salaciousness and dodgy practices of the tabloids, but I would rather err on the side of a profession that is hard to control than one that is pliant.