MEANING
1. To make a bent object or body part straighter, or to become straighter.
2. To become less stiff, severe, or formal in manner, or to ease someone’s mental strain.
Use it for
describing fingers slowly opening from a bent position; showing someone straightening a hunched body; depicting a bent object being returned toward its shapeSeparates straightening a bent body or object from a controlled person becoming less stiff or formal. Writing functions: Body language.
Words that belong together
- unbend the fingers
- unbend one’s back
- unbend a metal strip
On the page
She unbent her fingers one at a time, leaving pale crescents in her palm.
He unbent his back only when the cart had passed beyond the gate.
At the child’s solemn question, the magistrate unbent enough to smile.
The old music helped her unbend after an afternoon of exacting work.
Word forms
- Base
- unbend
- Past tense
- unbent
- Past participle
- unbent
- Present participle
- unbending
Full tense & aspect guide
- Present
- unbend
- Present continuous
- am/is/are unbending
- Present perfect
- have/has unbent
- Present perfect continuous
- have/has been unbending
- Past
- unbent
- Past continuous
- was/were unbending
- Past perfect
- had unbent
- Past perfect continuous
- had been unbending
- Future
- will unbend
- Future continuous
- will be unbending
- Future perfect
- will have unbent
- Future perfect continuous
- will have been unbending
Choose the auxiliary that agrees with your subject. These are constructions of one word, not separate entries.
Usage notes
Transitive or intransitive: unbends, unbent, unbent, unbending; future will unbend. Unbend the fingers; a severe person unbends. Unbending can also be an independent adjective meaning inflexible. Register: formal. Commonness: uncommon (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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