Also 6 bend(e [f. BEND v.]
1. Constrained into a curve, as a strung bow; curved, crooked, deflected from the straight line.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Troylus, III. 575. The Bente Mone with her hornys pale.
1483. Cath. Angl., 28. Bent as a bowe, extensus.
1523. Fitzherb., Husb., § 3. A bende pece of yren.
1656. trans. Hobbes’ Elem. Philos. (1839), 478. The particles of the bended body, whilst it is held bent.
1831. R. Knox, Cloquet’s Anat., 141. The two bones … constitute a bent and horizontal lever.
1879. Farrar, St. Paul (1883), 402. That bent and weary Jew.
b. Bent brow: an arched eyebrow (obs.); a wrinkled or knit brow.
c. 1380. Sir Ferumb., 1074. A wel schape man was hee, With Browes bente & eȝen stoute.
c. 1400. Rom. Rose, 861. Bent were hir browis two, Hir yen greye, & glad also.
a. 1641. Strafford, Lett., I. 179. This bent and ill-favoured brow of mine.
1853. Lytton, My Novel, II. vii. The sad gaze of the Parson, the bent brow of the Squire.
c. Forming part of the name of various modifications of tools or apparatus which have the blade, or other part bent to adapt them to special purposes: as bent-gauge, -gouge, -graver, -rasp, which have a bent or curved blade; bent-lever, a lever of the first kind, whose arms form an angle with each other, as a bell-crank lever; bent-lever balance, a balance having a short bent arm bearing a scale, and a long weighted arm the leverage of which increases as it ascends, ending in an index pointing to divisions in a graduated arc.
† 2. Braced, nerved, or wound up for action; couched for a spring; levelled or aimed as a weapon. † Sharp-bent: sharp-set, hungry. Obs.
c. 1330. Arth. & Merl., 1486. To dragouns ther layen y-bent.
c. 1500. Robin Hood (Ritson), I. ii. 57. Robin howt with a swerd bent, A bokeler en hes honde [therto].
1633. P. Fletcher, Purple Isl., II. v. Stood at the Castlesgate, now ready bent To sally out.
1675. Wycherley, Country Wife, V. (1735), 95. Ceremony and Expectation are unsufferable to those that are sharp bent; people always eat with the best stomach at an ordinary.
† 3. Determined, resolute, devoted, inclined, set.
1548. Udall, etc., Erasm. Par. Matt. xxvi. 116. With bent myndes had conspired the death.
1571. Ascham, Scholem. (1863), 87. The bent enemie against God and good order.
1645. Rutherford, Tryal & Tri. Faith (1845), 66. With a bent affection.
1655. Marq. Worcester, Cent. Inv., 2nd. Ded. ad. fin. My Lords and Gentlemen, Your most passionately-bent Fellow-Subject.
1740. L. Clarke, Hist. Bible, I. IX. 579. Being bent to have his revenge on the inhabitants of Ptolemais.
4. Directed in a course, on one’s way, bound.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., I. 296. Nor must the Ploughman less observe the Skies … Than Saylors homeward bent.
