4 uses
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Definition
not bendable or adaptable
in various senses, including:
- not willing to compromise or make concessions — as when a boss says "Do it my way or you're fired."
- not able to adjust well to different conditions — as of a schedule that cannot be changed
- not easily bent without physical damage or injury — as of brittle steel or person with stiff joints
- Such, gentlemen, is the inflexibility of sea-usages and the instinctive love of neatness in seamen; some of whom would not willingly drown without first washing their faces.Chapters 52-54 -- The Albatross; The Gam; The Town-Ho's Story (45% in)
inflexibility = not bendable or adaptable
in various senses, including:
- not willing to compromise or make concessions — as when a boss says "Do it my way or you're fired."
- not able to adjust well to different conditions — as of a schedule that cannot be changed
- not easily bent without physical damage or injury — as of brittle steel or person with stiff joints
- Yet was this Nantucketer a man with some good-hearted traits; and this Lakeman, a mariner, who though a sort of devil indeed, might yet by inflexible firmness, only tempered by that common decency of human recognition which is the meanest slave's right; thus treated, this Steelkilt had long been retained harmless and docile.Chapters 52-54 -- The Albatross; The Gam; The Town-Ho's Story (35% in)
- And when after gaining his own deck, and his own pivot-hole there, he so vehemently wheeled round with an urgent command to the steersman (it was, as ever, something about his not steering inflexibly enough);Chapters 106-108 -- Ahab's Leg; The Carpenter; Ahab and the Carpenter (2% in)
- But as ever before, the pagan harpooneers remained almost wholly unimpressed; or if impressed, it was only with a certain magnetism shot into their congenial hearts from inflexible Ahab's.Chapters 124-126 -- The Needle; The Log and Line; The Life-Buoy (20% in)
There are no more uses of "inflexible" in Moby Dick.
Typical Usage
(best examples)