a. Now somewhat rare. Also 7 flexil. [ad. L. flexil-em, f. flex- ppl. stem of flectĕre to bend: see -ILE.]
1. Easily bending or bent, pliant, supple, flexible. Of the features: Mobile.
1633. T. Adams, Exp. 2 Peter ii. 20. When the serpent catcheth his prey, he so clasps and winds about it with his flexile and folding body, that he holds it sure. Satan, that old serpent, so twines himself about the world-addicted soul, and his spirits like a bed of snakes so entangle it, that nothing but thunder can dissolve them.
a. 1734. North, Lives, II. 202. From the box proceeds a flexile pipe with the tool at the end; by which, at any time, when I find myself not well, I give myself a clyster.
1774. Westm. Mag., II. 374. Hers is the humble eye, the flexile knee.
1814. Wordsw., Excursion, VIII. 442.
| Along a hedge of stately hollies framed, | |
| Whose flexile boughs, descending with a weight | |
| Of leafy spray, conceal’d the stems and roots | |
| That gave them nourishment. |
1834. Lytton, Pompeii, 21. Upon the shore sat a Sicilian, who, with vehement gestures and flexile features, was narrating to a group of fishermen and peasants a strange tale of shipwreched mariners and friendly dolphins.
2. transf. and fig. a. Easily directed or swayed; yielding, tractable. b. Capable of varied adaptation, versatile.
1651. Biggs, New Disp., ¶ 291. 214. This plausible and stupid Doctrine, which will perswade no further then the lenity of beliefe in people inclines them, easily pleases all, who are prone to runne into the way of sloth, and facilly induced to subscribe by an implicite credulity to what first hath chopt into their understandings, and possessed their too flexile natures.
1738–46. Thomson, Summer, 969.
| But chief at Sea, whose every flexile Wave | |
| Obeys the Blast, th’ aërial Tumult swells. |
1744. Armstrong, Preserv. Health, II. 383.
| Whose flexile genius sparkles in the gem, | |
| Grows firm in oak, and fugitive in wine; | |
| The vehicle, the source, of nutriment | |
| And life, to all that vegitate or live. |
1836. Lytton, Athens (1837), I. 111. The Ionians, on the contrary, were susceptible, flexile, and more characterised by the generosity of modern knighthood than the sternness of ancient heroism.
1842. Tennyson, Amphion, viii. 59.
| O, Nature first was fresh to men, | |
| And wanton without measure; | |
| So youthful and so flexile then, | |
| You moved her at your pleasure. |
Hence Flexility [+ -ITY], the quality or condition of being flexile.
1659. T. Stanley, Hist. Philos. (1701), 565/2. There are others, which depend upon these; as Flexility, Tactility, Ductility, and others.
1815. W. Taylor, in Monthly Mag., XL. 1 Dec., 412/2. The flexility of the Samaritans, while the memory of their persecution lasted, must have appeared among the people to be the safer and more profitable course.
