Literary notes about malleable (AI summary)
In literature, "malleable" serves both a literal and metaphorical purpose. On one hand, it is used in technical and descriptive passages to illustrate metals that can be reshaped by heating or hammering—such as the iron that must be worked until it becomes soft enough to form thin sheets [1] and copper that is “very malleable and ductile when cold” [2]. On the other hand, authors extend the term to portray human or emotional flexibility, conveying how a person's mind or spirit can be softened and reshaped by experience or influence, as when a character is rendered “malleable to her will” [3] or is described as having a heart “inwardly as malleable as wax” [4]. This dual usage enhances the expressive quality of the word, bridging concrete physical processes with abstract human transformation [5] [6].
- [259] of malleable iron, about eight feet above the Rock, as represented in Plate VIII.
— from An Account of the Bell Rock Light-HouseIncluding the Details of the Erection and Peculiar Structure of That Edifice; to Which Is Prefixed a Historical View of the Institution and Progress of the Northern Light-Houses by Robert Stevenson - Copper is very malleable and ductile when cold, and in this state may be easily worked under the hammer.
— from Oxy-Acetylene Welding and Cutting Electric, Forge and Thermit Welding together with related methods and materials used in metal working and the oxygen process for removal of carbon by Harold P. (Harold Phillips) Manly - " She smiled as she spoke, letting her eyes rest on his in a way that took the edge from her banter and made him suddenly malleable to her will.
— from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton - Her intentions in short had never been more definite; but poor Lily, for all the hard glaze of her exterior, was inwardly as malleable as wax.
— from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton - It will be as flexible as ribbed grass, as ductile as the web of a spider, as malleable as the air between the gold-beater's skins.
— from Miracle Gold: A Novel (Vol. 1 of 3) by Richard Dowling - They taught how malleable and plastic is the human mind.
— from Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle by Henry Noel Brailsford
