- flex
- flex{
vb Flex, crook, bow, buckle mean to bend, but because of special implications and applications they are not freely interchangeable.}}
}Flex is used chiefly of the bending of a bodily joint especially between bones of a limb by which the angle between the bones is diminished, or it may apply to the contraction of muscles by which the bending is accomplished; in either case the word is usually opposed to extend (flex the arm at the elbow){flex the leg at the hip joint
}{he has grown so old and stiff that he cannot easily flex his knees
}{the world . . . would jeer at any eccentric who should flex his mental muscles in public— Barzun
}Crook may replace flex{the air was so full of rheumatism that no man could crook his arm to write a sermon— Blackmore
}{John, snickering, crooked his wicked thumb— Browning
}but it is also used to convey an implication of circuitousness and hence of contortion or distortion{God knows, my son, by what bypaths and indirect crook'd ways I met this crown— Shak.
}{forward then, but still remember how the course of time will swerve, crook and turn upon itself in many a backward streaming curve— Tennyson
}Bow (see also YIELD) may denote to bend as in reverence or submission{at the name of Jesus every knee should bow— Phil 2:10
}but it often means explicitly to incline downward the head and usually the part of the body above the waist, especially as a gesture of greeting, of recognition, or of reverence{bow pleasantly to acquaintances
}{bow reverently before a shrine
}{grasses that now were swaying and bowing like living things in happy dance— Idriess
}In a related use bow retains some suggestion of submission and implies a bending under something (as a heavy weight) that wears or oppresses{trees bowed down with ice
}{an old man bowed with years
}Buckle implies a bending under stress (as from undue pressure, weight, heat, or fright) that loosens or weakens what supports and that brings on collapse, often to the point of permanent distortion{noticed the buckling of the girder of the bridge
}{the freight train buckled as it left the track and fell over the embankment
}{the wall buckled under the heat of the fire
}{his knees buckled and he fell down on the floor— Chandler
}{the bulkhead had buckled; he had actually seen it coming forward— Crofts
}Analogous words: bend, *curve, twistAntonyms: extend
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.