What's the difference between pliable and tractable?

Pliable


Definition:

  • (v.) Capable of being plied, turned, or bent; easy to be bent; flexible; pliant; supple; limber; yielding; as, willow is a pliable plant.
  • (v.) Flexible in disposition; readily yielding to influence, arguments, persuasion, or discipline; easy to be persuaded; -- sometimes in a bad sense; as, a pliable youth.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) For removal of catheter fragments from vessels of small diameter, such as the subclavian vein, or vessels in which the catheter has to take an acute bend to enter, such as the right or left pulmonary artery, a smaller, more pliable Bean-Smith-Mahorner biliary stone helical basket was adapted by extending the length of wire to 100 cm.
  • (2) In this theory the isoprenoid chain of the retinal is considered a structurally pliable molecular entity that can generate charge redistributions and can be subsequently achieve intermediate conformations or various isomeric states to minimize the energy of the new protein structure generated by light.
  • (3) The plug is made of a soft, pliable plastic material with open cells, containing a carbon filter which allows flatus to pass odour-free.
  • (4) A patient's epiglottis became trapped between the pliable grates in the mask portion of the laryngeal mask and partially obstructed his airway.
  • (5) In regard to valvular anatomy, 67 had calcified valves, 58 had pliable valves and only mild subvalvular disease, and 75 had flexible valves but extensive subvalvular disease.
  • (6) Add as much of the sparkling water as you need to make a smooth, pliable mixture.
  • (7) As he checks the woman’s heart with a stethoscope, he explains exactly what is about to happen to her – the nurses will hook her up to an EKG machine, among other procedures – and gets the woman to lie down, still muttering at the original nurse but pliable.
  • (8) The splitting of several calcareous nodules on a valve made it more pliable.
  • (9) Explanted valves showed no tissue thickening or shrinkage, problems seen with earlier valves made with untreated autogenous tissue, and the leaflets remained pliable, free of the degenerative changes usually seen in the sheep model.
  • (10) A pliable, easy to place, double pigtail, internal ureteral stent made of elastomeric polyurethane is described.
  • (11) The operation resulted into a normally looking penis through the creation of a wide neourethra starting with a meatus at the apex of the glans and covered by a pliable elastic hair-less skin.
  • (12) In contrast to the pectoralis major myocutaneous flap, the pectoralis major muscle flap is light and pliable.
  • (13) Cabinet members speedily agreed to hefty cuts in 2010 and proved so pliable that the "star chamber", which hears appeals from ministers against the Treasury, never met once.
  • (14) It remains pliable until light is applied, allowing adjustments in shape for a well-fitted implant without time constraints.
  • (15) The Wallstent (Medinvent SA, Lausanne, Switzerland), a pliable, tubular stainless steel mesh, is the metallic stent of choice for treatment of malignant strictures and can be implanted in a single session resulting in a shortened hospital stay for patients undergoing palliation of irresectable biliary tumours.
  • (16) Optimal results may be expected in patients in normal sinus rhythm, with pliable mitral leaflets, and with no severe subvalvular disease identified by echocardiography, who undergo dilation with large effective balloon dilating areas.
  • (17) Clonidine has been incorporated into a small, pliable adhesive cutaneous delivery device designed to provide therapeutically effective doses of drug at a constant rate for at least 7 days.
  • (18) The hypopharyngeal mucosa is a thin, pliable lining, which often needs replacement after tumor excision, stenosis and fistulae.
  • (19) The data suggest that LICS act as pliable fluid reservoirs that empty and collapse on stimulation of Cl secretion.
  • (20) The many difficulties associated with bladder stimulation include simultaneous sphincter contraction, pain, electrode and insulation difficulties, and fibroplasia due to movement of electrodes placed in pliable tissues.

Tractable


Definition:

  • (v. t.) Capable of being easily led, taught, or managed; docile; manageable; governable; as, tractable children; a tractable learner.
  • (v. t.) Capable of being handled; palpable; practicable; feasible; as, tractable measures.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The estimators are tractable even when there are incomplete observations.
  • (2) A smooth isolated, axisymmetric occlusion in a straight vascular tube is a tractable problem for pulsatile flow calculations via finite-difference approximations to the Navier-Stokes equation.
  • (3) Factor analysis was used as a statistical means to make the complex variables generated by the system more tractable to analysis.
  • (4) Evolutionary effects such as linkage disequilibrium and conservation of exons (DNA encoding structural proteins) as well as the fact that there are a tractable number of gene clusters involved, tend to make it quite likely that DNA pathology or DNA variation (polymorphism) predisposing to mental illness can be detected.
  • (5) Furthermore, the recognition of disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) in an early, tractable phase may be a matter of life and death.
  • (6) The model is distinctive in its ability to capture a significant broadening of auditory-nerve fiber frequency selectivity as a function of increasing sound-pressure level within a computationally tractable time-invariant structure.
  • (7) It is suggested that the use of biomarkers for persistent chemicals may be useful to mitigate the difficulty of determining exposure, while the use of more prevalent and timely end points, such as carcinogen-DNA adducts or oncogene proteins, may make the latency and rarity problems more tractable.
  • (8) Of particular interest to plant developmental biologists is the phenomenon of somatic embryogenesis in cultures of the domesticated carrot which, because of its tractable nature in experimental manipulations, is presently regarded as a suitable model for studying pattern formation in plants.
  • (9) The chain statistics problem is treated in an approximate manner using an approach motivated by scaled particle theory to describe the inter-chain steric repulsions in a mathematically tractable way.
  • (10) By ignoring cognitive factors and memory, a first-order Markov approach is taken, which is tractable for spatially homogeneous stimuli.
  • (11) The LI during the healing stage was higher than that during the active stage in both the tractable and intractable cases.
  • (12) In those cases where tractable models of heterogeneous systems can be developed, the experimental data are consistent with drops in PO2 on the order of a few hundredths of a Torr between cytosol and mitochondrion.
  • (13) In the world view Rubio outlined Wednesday, which he billed as a new doctrine, certain regional conflicts that look very difficult – the ongoing war in Syria, the failed state of Libya – in fact began as tractable problems that spun out of control due to tragic US negligence.
  • (14) Mathematically tractable alternatives are the linear formalism and the power-law formalism.
  • (15) With improvements in anaerobic handling procedures, this is beginning to change, and several experimentally tractable regulated systems of gene expression in methanogens are discussed.
  • (16) The main goals of the analysis are: to provide improved understanding of biochemical dynamics and their physiological significance, and to yield reduced dynamic models that are physiologically realistic but tractable for practical use.
  • (17) Results of this investigation suggest that bulimia displays a chronic but tractable course in that the majority of the patients continued to report bulimic behaviors at follow-up but the symptom intensity was greatly reduced from admission.
  • (18) Therefore, this review summarizes the rationale behind various experimental approaches, the nature and tractability of limitations, and the results which can be safely drawn from experimental studies to date.
  • (19) This approximation often makes the governing equations tractable, and analytical solutions may then be obtained.
  • (20) As a non-obligate metazoan, Dictyostelium discoideum has proven a particularly tractable system in which to identify and characterize cellular morphogens.