Re: Weekly Vocab #2.1.16 (repost #1)

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."
Neither does Chamber's English Dictionary nor AFAIK does the Oxford
English Dictionary.

Nor, indeed, would I readily understand "The victorious army flexes its
invincibility" to mean what is apparently denoted above. The verb means
to 'to bend, to cause to bend, to bend & retract' etc.

The phrase above is not one I would readily use and 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.

I assume the above meaning has developed from (a misunderstand of) the
phrase "to flex one's muscles."

Certainly as used in the sentence above it is IMO lamentably ambiguous.

--
Ray
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