e·las·tic

(ĭ-lăs′tĭk)

adj.

a. Easily resuming original size or shape after being stretched or otherwise deformed; flexible. See Synonyms at flexible.

b. Relating to a collision in which the total kinetic energy is conserved.

2. Quick to recover, as from disappointment; resilient: an elastic spirit.

3. Capable of being adapted to change or a variety of circumstances: "To say that morale is a highly unscientific and quite elastic concept would be an understatement" (Roger J. Spiller).

4. Economics Of, relating to, or being a good for which changes in price have a large effect on the quantity demanded or supplied.

a. A flexible stretchable fabric made with interwoven strands of rubber or an imitative synthetic fiber.

b. An object made of this fabric.

2. A rubber band.

[New Latin elasticus, from Late Greek elastos, beaten, ductile, variant of Greek elatos, from elaunein, to beat out.]

e·las′ti·cal·ly adv.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

I left him in the act of bounding elastically out of the bed into which I had tucked him; but, as I took the precaution of turning the key in the door behind me, I retired to my own room, assured of his safe custody till the morning, and free to draw undisturbed conclusions from the scene I had just witnessed.

View in context

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