Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The quality of being pliable; flexibility; the quality of yielding readily to force or to moral influence; pliability: as, the pliableness of a plant; pliableness of disposition.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The state of being
pliable ;pliability .
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Its hardness or obstinacy, in opposition to the pliableness of a heart of flesh, is principally intended in this expression.
Pneumatologia 1616-1683 1967
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The laughable element in both cases consists of a certain MECHANICAL INELASTICITY, just where one would expect to find the wide-awake adaptability and the living pliableness of a human being.
Laughter : an Essay on the Meaning of the Comic Henri Bergson 1900
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The goodliest minds are those that have most variety and pliableness in them ....
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But who does not feel in the son the serious charm of a power of adaptation and pliableness which we can never associate with the hardy and more rigorous nature of the other?
Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography John Morley 1880
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The consequences of the strength of the political spirit are not all direct, nor does its strength by any means spring solely from its indulgence to the less respectable elements of character, such as languor, extreme pliableness, superficiality.
On Compromise John Morley 1880
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Jesuits themselves were wont to call their own pliableness.
Christian Ethics. Volume I.���History of Ethics. 1819-1870 1873
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His good nature, his benevolence, and the pliableness of his disposition may surely be allowed to compensate for many defects.
Italian Letters, Vols. I and II The History of the Count de St. Julian William Godwin 1796
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Finding, by experience, how unsuccessful those measures had proved, and observing the low condition to which he was now reduced, he resolved to alter his whole conduct, and to regain the confidence of his people by pliableness, by concessions, and by a total conformity to their inclinations and prejudices.
The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. From Charles I. to Cromwell David Hume 1743
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This instance of the pliableness of the disciples, gives us a good example of obedience to the command of Christ.
Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume V (Matthew to John) 1721
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He kept in by being an oak, not by being a willow, by a constancy in virtue, not by a pliableness to vice.
Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume IV (Isaiah to Malachi) 1721
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