What's the difference between pliant and supple?

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.

Supple


Definition:

  • (a.) Pliant; flexible; easily bent; as, supple joints; supple fingers.
  • (a.) Yielding compliant; not obstinate; submissive to guidance; as, a supple horse.
  • (a.) Bending to the humor of others; flattering; fawning; obsequious.
  • (v. t.) To make soft and pliant; to render flexible; as, to supple leather.
  • (v. t.) To make compliant, submissive, or obedient.
  • (v. i.) To become soft and pliant.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) (Acta Chir Scand [Suppl] 346:1-12, 1965) was determined.
  • (2) Children as young as 18 months start by sliding on tiny skis in soft supple boots, while over-threes have more formal lessons in the snow playground.
  • (3) Ultrastructural studies of Aeromonas hydrophila strain AH26 revealed two distinctive pilus types: "straight" pili appear as brittle, rod-like filaments, whereas "flexible" pili are supple and curvilinear.
  • (4) Priestman (Eur J Cancer Clin Oncol 25:529-533, 1989 [Suppl]) reported on a pilot and randomized study with ondansetron after single doses of 8 to 10 Gy to the upper abdomen.
  • (5) 11 (suppl 14) 331 (abstract)] [14] also indicates that sensitivity to 4-HC can be used to distinguish primitive progenitor cells from committed progenitor cells.
  • (6) Large-scale clinical trials have established that lowering blood pressure in patients with mild to moderate diastolic hypertension results in a decreased incidence of stroke and, to a lesser extent, a reduction in incidence of coronary heart disease [MacMahon SW, Cutler JA, Furberg CD, et al: Prog Cardiovasc Dis 1986; 29 (suppl 1): 99-118].
  • (7) We have used either superior or inferior flaps but over the last 25 years we have preferred the latter type of flap (Rosenthal) which produces better results because: 1) it is retracted laterally to a lesser degree, 2) it is more supple, 3) it is attached below and posteriorly to the soft palate (which permits the pharyngeal constrictor muscles, during contraction, to apply pressure against the lateral borders of the flap, and thus avoid any nasal regurgitation).
  • (8) "When you're inside an idea it's hard to think of it as ambitious, but yes it is a huge mountain we are climbing, it's a huge sea we are crossing," said Supple.
  • (9) Wide subperiosteal undermining in primary surgical correction of labio-maxillary clefts not only enhances the osteogenic activity of the periosteum but in addition, if the exposure is extended from the superior limit of the ascending maxillary process and the nasal bone to the inferior orbital rim above the infra-orbital foramen and the malar eminence, good suppleness of the overlying muscles can be achieved.
  • (10) The authors observed an abnormal frequency of laryngo-tracheal stenosis over a period of three months, corresponding to the use of a defective lot of supple catheters for single use and made of polyvinyl chloride.
  • (11) Muscarine has been iso lared in a yield of 0.013 percent from mycelia of Clitocybe rivulosa grown in the laboratory on a medium supple mented with beer wort.
  • (12) One may thus carry out by an extremely benign operation without any mortality, a surgical cure not only of supple stenoses, but also of certain tight fibrous stenoses, considered insuperable.
  • (13) The second stage of the reeducation concerns the tongue moving tonicity and suppleness.
  • (14) This flap provides thin, supple skin for reconstruction of moderately sized vaginal defects leaving a minimal donor defect.
  • (15) Preoperative requirements include a well-motivated patient with a supple digit and an established wide discrepancy between the active and passive ranges of digital motion.
  • (16) Microscopic normalization of the actinically damaged epidermis and papillary dermis was manifested clinically by the replacement of dermatoheliosis with supple, smooth-textured facial skin that remained clinically evident well beyond 8 years after dermabrasion.
  • (17) Speedy postpartum weight loss isn't just for celebs In Karnataka, southern India, older women in the community who care for new mothers urge them to become thinner than they were before pregnancy, "like the tip of a mantani leaf – thin, slender, fresh and supple," says Dr Saraswathy Ganapathy of the Belaku Trust , which works to improve the lives of women in the area.
  • (18) Suppl 2 decreased plasma triglycerides, further increased the RBC alpha-tocopherol, moderately increased the RBC double-bond index, but decreased the RBC total fatty acid-cholesterol ratio.
  • (19) He tests the suppleness of his editing muscles by running a clip of film, noting where the actor blinks, then re-playing and halting at exactly that frame (there's 24 of them a second).
  • (20) LBA was done using a supple balloon catheter (LBA-c) which was placed blind down the intubation tube, until a distal bronchus was blocked (under radiographic control).