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The branch of a tree partly cut or bent, and bound to, or intertwined with, other branches.

A group of fresh-water turtles in which the neck can not be retracted, but is bent to one side, for protection. The matamata is an example.

Capable of being plied, turned, or bent; easy to be bent; flexible; pliant; supple; limber; yielding; as, willow is a pliable plant.

s trees, are believed to be varieties of the blackthorn, produced by long cultivation. G. Bentham. are in bold format, like collocations.

Bent; turn; direction; bias. The late learners can not so well take the ply. Bacon. Boswell, and others of Goldsmith's contemporaries, . . . did not understand the secret plies of his character. W. Irving. The czar's mind had taken a strange ply, which it retained to the last. Macaulay.

state of being balanced by equal weight or power; equipoise; balance; equilibrium; rest. Bentley.

nner; possibly, not positively. The duration of human souls is only potentially infinite. Bentley.

ffectual; to obviate by anticipation. This much will obviate and preclude the objections. Bentley.

examination; to bias the mind of, by hasty and incorrect notions; to give an unreasonable bent to, as to one side or the other of a cause; as, to prejudice a critic or a juryman. Suffer not any beloved study to prejudice your mind so far as to despise all other learning. I. Watts

The quality or state of being past. Bentley. Lowell.

s to have opposite relative positions, a ray of light passed through them is refracted or bent into a new position, but is free from color. -- Nicol's prism, Nicol prism. Etym: [So called from Wm. Nicol, of Edinburgh, who first proposed it.] (Opt.) An instrument for experiments in polarization, consisting of a rhomb o…

ty or state of being propense; natural inclination; disposition to do good or evil; bias; bent; tendency. "A propensity to utter blasphemy." Macaulay.

stius hoped to put me off with an harangue. Boyle. We might put him off with this answer. Bentley.

An iron bar, with the end bent, used in stirring or skimming molten iron in the process of puddling.

, or customs duties. Blount. Rebated cross, a cross which has the extremities of the arms bent back at right angles, as in the fylfot.

instituted shore. Dryden. All bodies moved circularly endeavor to recede from the center. Bentley.

To review; to revise. [R.] Bentley.

bly; mutually. These two particles to reciprocally affect each other with the same force. Bentley.

Reclined, as a leaf; bent downward, so that the point, as of a stem or leaf, is lower than the base.

Leaning; reclining; lying; as, the recumbent posture of the Romans at their meals. Hence, figuratively; Resting; inactive; idle. -- Re*cum"bent*ly, adv.