INFLEXIBLE

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does inflexible mean? 

• INFLEXIBLE (adjective)
  The adjective INFLEXIBLE has 4 senses:

1. incapable of change

2. not making concessions

3. resistant to being bent

4. incapable of adapting or changing to meet circumstances

  Familiarity information: INFLEXIBLE used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INFLEXIBLE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Incapable of change

Context example:

a man of inflexible purpose

Similar:

adamant; adamantine; inexorable; intransigent (impervious to pleas, persuasion, requests, reason)

die-hard; rock-ribbed (tradition-bound and obstinately opinionated)

fossilised; fossilized; ossified (set in a rigidly conventional pattern of behavior, habits, or beliefs)

hard-core (stubbornly resistant to change or improvement)

brassbound; ironclad (inflexibly entrenched and unchangeable)

Antonym:

flexible (capable of being changed)

Derivation:

inflexibility (the quality of being rigid and rigorously severe)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Not making concessions

Synonyms:

inflexible; sturdy; uncompromising

Context example:

uncompromising honesty

Similar:

hard-line; hardline (firm and uncompromising)

Derivation:

inflexibility (the quality of being rigid and rigorously severe)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Resistant to being bent

Context example:

an inflexible knife blade

Similar:

muscle-bound (having stiff muscles as the result of excessive exercise)

rigid; stiff (incapable of or resistant to bending)

semirigid (not fully rigid)

Also:

inelastic (not elastic)

Antonym:

flexible (able to flex; able to bend easily)

Derivation:

inflexibility; inflexibleness (a lack of physical flexibility)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Incapable of adapting or changing to meet circumstances

Synonyms:

inflexible; rigid; unbending

Context example:

an unbending will to dominate

Similar:

unadaptable (not adaptable)

Derivation:

inflexibility (the quality of being rigid and rigorously severe)

 Context examples 

I would repeat, perhaps, if I were very inflexible.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

A device problem that occurred when its material is either too flexible/pliable or inflexible/rigid when in contact by an applied force.

(Device Stiffness Problem Evaluation Result, Food and Drug Administration)

When normal personality traits become inflexible and maladaptive, causing subjective distress or impaired social functioning, they can be considered disorders.

(Personality Disorder, NIH CRISP Thesaurus)

They involve long-term patterns of thoughts and behaviors that are unhealthy and inflexible.

(Personality Disorders, NIH)

Here the honest but inflexible servant clapped the door to and bolted it within.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

A diverse category of psychiatric disorders characterized by behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual's culture; this pattern of deviation is pervasive and inflexible and is stable over time.

(Personality Disorder, NCI Thesaurus)

Yet even without knowing his brilliant record one could not fail to be impressed by a mere glance at the man, the square, massive face, the brooding eyes under the thatched brows, and the granite moulding of the inflexible jaw.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Having Saturn and Pluto together in your career sector has been very hard to deal with because you might have felt like you had an impossible boss or client dictating rules and being very inflexible.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Soaking and stained, with a smear of blood on his white shoulder and another on his brow, there was still in his whole pose and set of face the trace of an inflexible resolution.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

There was a box of vestas, two inches of tallow candle, an A.D.P. briar-root pipe, a pouch of seal-skin with half an ounce of long-cut Cavendish, a silver watch with a gold chain, five sovereigns in gold, an aluminium pencil-case, a few papers, and an ivory-handled knife with a very delicate, inflexible blade marked Weiss & Co., London.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)