flexures

Noun

flexure (countable and uncountable, plural flexures)

1. The act of bending or flexing; flexion.
   • The gular flutter is characterized by a rapid flutter of the gular region caused by flexure and relaxation of the hyoid apparatus2025, Brian Speer, Yvonne R.A. van Zeeland, Current Therapy in Avian Medicine and Surgery Volume II, Elsevier, page 450
2. A turn; a bend; a fold; a curve.
   • but scarce had I drawn back mine arms, strained the outward flexure of my knee-joints, and was fixed in an apt disposure to take the corvetto primo and leap-valiant of the cour, when methought suddenly there came in and did appear before me mine ancient, most reverend and singular good friend, the...1843, Bernard M— (of S—), A Dream of a Queen's Reign, page 4
3. A part of a machine designed to bend in operation.
4. A curve or bend in a tubular organ.
   • The Stomach [of a weasel] about three inches long; proportionably, more than a Dogs. An inch in Diametre at the upper Orifice; and the nether, ¼; having a flexure towards its Conjunction with the Guts: ſhaped like to the body of a pair of Bag-Pipes.1681, Nehemiah Grew, “The Comparative Anatomy of Stomachs and Guts Begun. Being Several Lectures Read before the Royal Society in the Year, 1676. Chapter I. Of the Stomachs and Guts of Six...
5. The last joint, or bend, of the wing of a bird.
6. The small distortion of an astronomical instrument caused by the weight of its parts; the amount to be added or subtracted from the observed readings of the instrument to correct them for this distortion.

See all 7 meanings of flexure