ELASTIC • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Elastic

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/ɪlˈæstɪk/ Listen

adjective

Elastic adj.

1.

Springing back; having a power or inherent property of returning to the form from which a substance is bent, drawn, pressed, or twisted; springy; having the power of rebounding; as, a bow is elastic; the air is elastic; India rubber is elastic. "Capable of being drawn out by force like a piece of elastic gum, and by its own elasticity returning, when the force is removed, to its former position."

2.

Able to return quickly to a former state or condition, after being depressed or overtaxed; having power to recover easily from shocks and trials; as, elastic spirits; an elastic constitution.

Elastic bitumen. (Min.) See Elaterite.

Elastic curve.

(a)

(Geom.) The curve made by a thin elastic rod fixed horizontally at one end and loaded at the other.

(b)

(Mech.) The figure assumed by the longitudinal axis of an originally straight bar under any system of bending forces.

Elastic fluids, those which have the property of expanding in all directions on the removal of external pressure, as the air, steam, and other gases and vapors.

Elastic limit (Mech.), the limit of distortion, by bending, stretching, etc., that a body can undergo and yet return to its original form when relieved from stress; also, the unit force or stress required to produce this distortion. Within the elastic limit the distortion is directly proportional to the stress producing it.

Elastic tissue (Anat.), a variety of connective tissue consisting of a network of slender and very elastic fibers which are but slightly affected by acids or alkalies.

Gum elastic, caoutchouc.

noun

Elastic n. An elastic woven fabric, as a belt, braces or suspenders, etc., made in part of India rubber. (Colloq.)

See images of 'Elastic'

Etymology of 'Elastic'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Elastic" Quotes from Famous Books

... it is that the moral is written at the end of the fable, not at the beginning. The organization in youth is so dangerously elastic that the result of these intellectual excesses is not seen until years after. When some young girl incurs spinal disease from some slight fall, which she ought not to have felt for an hour, or some business man breaks down in the prime of his years ...

— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson

... the road. The shop was small and unpretending. In the window the chief ornaments were speckled plaster limbs clad in elastic socks, and photographs of hideous complaints before and after treatment with a celebrated ointment; and there were certain trophies which indicated that the chemist numbered dentistry among ...

— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey

... aerial observers realized that the tremendous sledge-hammer blows, directed with consummate skill and resiliency, left the mass of wastage on the German side; for, with strategical and tactical problems suddenly changed from boxed-in trench warfare to the elastic manoeuvers of open battle, the directing mind which is more elastic, all things else being equal, wins the day—and, whatever other virtues the Boche may possess, his mind can hardly be said to expand ...

— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris

... wish a better supper than ripe berries and molasses? Nor was there need of sleeping under roof nor of lighting candles to grope his way to pallet of straw, when he might have the blue vault of heaven arching over him, and all God's stars for lamps, and for a bed a horse blanket stretched over an elastic couch of pine needles. There were two gaunt pines that had been dropping their polished spills for centuries, perhaps silently adding, year by year, another layer of aromatic springiness to poor Tom's bed. Flinging his tired body on this grateful ...

— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin

... undefined. It was grey, and looked transparent, but it was a warm-grey, and grew moment by moment less transparent, gradually assuming the shape of his friend of the previous day, alive and to all appearances uninjured, as, with its soft, elastic, cat-like step and undulating body and tail, it walked slowly down to the edge of the bank, and stood staring at Rob as if waiting for him ...

— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn

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