plasticity.

1. The capacity of an organism or system to change in response to experience or conditions.

2. The ability of a material to be reshaped without breaking and to retain the new form.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• neural plasticity
• developmental plasticity

On the page

The study examined neural plasticity without assuming that every change was beneficial.

Usage notes

Primary category: psychology / human behavior. Forms: Usually uncountable; no ordinary plural in this sense. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: character, interpretation. Commonness: moderately common.