>>caeruleancentaur wrote:
>>flex, v. exhibit the strength of; "The victorious army flexes
>>its invincibility"
>> Neither the AHD nor Wiktionary give this as a definition
>>of "flex."
>R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:
>Neither does Chamber's English Dictionary nor AFAIK does the Oxford
>English Dictionary.
>I would, without the gloss above, understand to mean that the
>victorious army "bent its invincibility'. i.e. was flexible and
>showed magnanimity and tolerance, although it was invincible.
"To flex a muscle" brings to my mind a picture of a man (or a woman)
displaying his biceps. The connotation would be that of showing off
or displaying rather than bending.
Perhaps that is the connotation intended in the above example.
Charlie