Word.ws English Dictionary

pliant

Syllables: pli·ant/ˈplaɪənt/

pliant adjective: capable of plying or bending; readily yielding to force or pressure without breaking.

pliant: brown and green tree under blue sky during daytime
Photo by Daniel Zopf on Unsplash

Adjective

pliant (comparative more pliant, superlative most pliant)

  1. Capable of plying or bending; readily yielding to force or pressure without breaking.
    • a pliant thread
    • pliant wax
  2. (figuratively) Easily influenced; tractable.
    • I muſt haue wanton Poets, pleaſant wits,
      Muſitians, that with touching of a ſtring
      May draw the pliant king which way I pleaſe: […]1594, Christopher Marlow[e], The Troublesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England: […], London: […] [R. Robinson] for William Iones […], →OCLC, [Act I], signature A3...
    • [A]nd it is without all controuerſie, that learning doth make the minds of men gentle, generous, maniable, and pliant to gouernment; whereas Ignorance makes them churliſh, thwart, and mutinous; […]1605, Francis Bacon, “The First Booke”, in The Twoo Bookes of Francis Bacon. Of the Proficience and Aduancement of Learning, Diuine and Humane, London: […] [Thomas Purfoot and Thomas Creede] for...

pliant meaning in Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

pliant in Urdu

pliant,
کومل kōmal

pliant in Bengali

নমনীয়, অনুগত

pliant in Malayalam

എളുപ്പം വഴങ്ങുന്ന, ദൃഢതയില്ലാത്ത, വളയ്ക്കാവുന്ന, അനുനയിക്കാവുന്ന

Synonyms of pliant

13 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of pliant

Forms of pliant

comparativemore pliant
superlativemost pliant

Origin of pliant

From Middle English pliaunt, from Old French ploiant, present participle of ploiier (“to fold”).

Words formed from pliant

Words that rhyme with pliant

Questions about pliant

What does pliant mean?
Pliant means capable of plying or bending; readily yielding to force or pressure without breaking.
What is pliant in Urdu?
Pliant in Urdu is کومل (kōmal). See Pliant meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is pliant?
Pliant is an adjective.
How do you pronounce pliant?
Pliant is pronounced /ˈplaɪənt/.

Words near pliant in the dictionary

  1. pliable
  2. pliableness
  3. pliably
  4. pliancies
  5. pliancy
  6. pliant
  7. pliantly
  8. pliantness
  9. pliars
  10. PLIC
  11. plica

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pliant (page history and authors); کومل (Urdu) (page history and authors); pliant (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); pliant (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-pliant.wav.

Cite this entry: “pliant.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pliant. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.