BEND, [Latin pando, pandare, to bend in; pando, pandere, to open; pandus, bent, crooked]

1. To strain, or to crook by straining; as, to bend a bow.

2. To crook; to make crooked; to curve; to inflect; as, to bend the arm.

3. To direct to a certain point; as, to bend our steps or course to a particular place.

4. To exert; to apply closely; to exercise laboriously; to intend or stretch; as, to bend the mind to study.

5. To prepare or put in order for use; to stretch or strain.

He hath bent his bow and made it ready. Psalms 7:1.

6. To incline; to be determined; that is, to stretch towards, or cause to tend; as, to be bent on mischief.

7. To subdue; to cause to yield; to make submissive; as, to bend a man to our will.

8. In seamanship, to fasten, as one rope to another or to an anchor; to fasten, as a sail to its yard or stay; to fasten, as a cable to the ring of an anchor.

9. To bend the brow, is to knit the brow; to scowl; to frown.

BEND, verb intransitive To be crooked; to crook, or be curving.

1. To incline; to lean or turn; as, a road bends to the west.

2. To jut over; as a bending cliff.

3. To resolve, or determine.[See Bent on.]

4. To bow or be submissive. Isaiah 60:1.

BEND, noun A curve; a crook; a turn in a road or river; flexure; incurvation.

1. In marine language, that part of a rope which is fastened to another or to an anchor. [See To bend No.8.]

2. Bends of a ship, are the thickest and strongest planks in her sides, more generally called wales. They are reckoned from the water, first, second or third bend They have the beams, knees, and foot hooks bolted to them, and are the chief strength of the ship's sides.

3. In heraldry, one of the nine honorable ordinaries, containing a third part of the field, when charged, and a fifth, when plain. It is made by two lines drawn across from the dexter chief, to the sinister base point. It sometimes is indented, ingrained, etc.

BEND, noun A band. [Not in use.]