What's the difference between flexible and stiff?

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.

Stiff


Definition:

  • (superl.) Not easily bent; not flexible or pliant; not limber or flaccid; rigid; firm; as, stiff wood, paper, joints.
  • (superl.) Not liquid or fluid; thick and tenacious; inspissated; neither soft nor hard; as, the paste is stiff.
  • (superl.) Firm; strong; violent; difficult to oppose; as, a stiff gale or breeze.
  • (superl.) Not easily subdued; unyielding; stubborn; obstinate; pertinacious; as, a stiff adversary.
  • (superl.) Not natural and easy; formal; constrained; affected; starched; as, stiff behavior; a stiff style.
  • (superl.) Harsh; disagreeable; severe; hard to bear.
  • (superl.) Bearing a press of canvas without careening much; as, a stiff vessel; -- opposed to crank.
  • (superl.) Very large, strong, or costly; powerful; as, a stiff charge; a stiff price.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) If you turn the bowl upside down, the whites should be stiff enough not to fall out.
  • (2) The stiffness of the fibre first rose abruptly in response to stretch and then started to decrease linearly while the stretch went on; after the completion of stretch the stiffness decreased towards a steady value which was equal to that during the isometric tetanus at the same sarcomere length, indicating that the enhancement of isometric force is associated with decreased stiffness.
  • (3) Current methodology for the in vitro determination of aortic and large artery stiffness is reviewed and involves three approaches: (1) the estimation of distensibility by pulse wave velocity measurement; (2) the estimation of distensibility from the fractional diameter change of a given arterial segment by imaging techniques (e.g., angiography, Doppler ultrasound) against pressure change; (3) the estimation of compliance by determining volume change against pressure change in the arterial system during diastolic runoff from the Windkessel model of the circulation.
  • (4) The maintenance of adequate blood circulation requires a sufficient ventricular contractility; in addition, to eject blood, the ventricles must first receive a sufficient volume, requiring a low diastolic stiffness.
  • (5) Stiffness was reduced in approximate proportion to the ramp stretch rate, and the reduction was confined largely to the elastic component.
  • (6) Proof stress, ultimate tensile strength, elongation, and plastic stiffness have been measured and results compared by use of analyses of variance.
  • (7) In other words, the stiffness of these areas was low and the recovery from deformation was fast.
  • (8) But the same court also just refused to hear an appeal of a Minnesota woman who's been ordered to pay more than $220,000 for downloading two-dozen songs – a testament to Congress' gift to Hollywood and its allies in the form of absurdly stiff penalties for minor infringement.
  • (9) The tension-length relation for the unstimulated (passive) cell is also linear between 1r and the elastic limit, but is displaced from the active tension-length curve and is of reduced stiffness.
  • (10) Bilaterals in summit seasons can be stiff exchanges, where digressions can carry risks: not enough said, too much said.
  • (11) We measured the stiffness of comparable configurations (1 or 2 bars) under axial compression, four-point-bending in two planes, and torsion.
  • (12) Tiny, tiny... rodents – some soft and grey, some brown with black stripes, in paintings, posters, wallcharts, thumb-tacked magazine clippings and poorly executed crayon drawings, hurling themselves fatally in their thousands over the cliff of their island home; or crudely taxidermied and mounted, eyes glazed and little paws frozen stiff – on every available surface.
  • (13) The bone stiffness also correlates strongly with the geometry (area) and slightly with bone mass; however, an unexpectedly low correlation was found between stiffness and density.
  • (14) Finally, fibrosis may paradoxically reduce passive stiffness if it leads to a thinning of the interventricular septum.
  • (15) A young male nephrotic patient, who was given small doses of clofibrate for hyperlipaemia, developed muscle pain, stiffness and very high serum levels of muscle enzymes.
  • (16) Impaired left ventricular stiffness may be an additional criterion for using corinfar in patients with coronary heart disease.
  • (17) The increase of elastic fibres following denervation and reinnervation represents an obviously meaningful reaction that may compensate for loss of tonic properties of muscle spindles without causing stiffness.
  • (18) Only the bone-patellar tendon-bone unit had maximum force and stiffness greater than that of the ACL.
  • (19) The initial stiffness is poorly described by material or catheter gauge.
  • (20) The stiffness tester and torque meter were found to yield nearly the same measurements of bending deformation for orthodontic wires as small as .007 inch diameter, provided the different bending apparatus are calibrated to each other.