Meaning & use
malleable
Last updated
Meanings
adjectivecomparabletechnical
Soft enough to be hammered or pressed into a new shape without breaking.
Grammar: Used for metals and other materials: malleable gold.
Patterns
- malleable metal
Gold is so malleable that it can be beaten into very thin sheets.
The clay stays malleable if you keep it covered.
Heating the iron makes it malleable enough to bend.
adjectivecomparablefigurative
Easy to influence, mold or change, whether a person, idea or plan.
Grammar: For people it can suggest being too easy to influence.
Patterns
- malleable to something
Young minds are malleable and absorb new ideas quickly.
The plan is malleable, so we can adjust it as we go.
He was too malleable and agreed to whatever his friends suggested.
Word forms
| comparative | more malleable |
|---|---|
| superlative | most malleable |
Common combinations
- highly malleable
- Copper is highly malleable and easy to shape.
- malleable metal
- A malleable metal can be rolled into thin sheets.
- malleable mind
- A child has a malleable mind.
- remain malleable
- The dough remains malleable for an hour.
- malleable personality
- His malleable personality made him easy to persuade.
Synonyms and how they differ
- pliable
- Pliable stresses bending easily without breaking, so it fits things like leather as well as people.
- flexible
- Flexible suggests bending or adapting without needing to be reshaped permanently, while malleable implies being reshaped.
- impressionable
- Impressionable is used only for people, usually young, and stresses being easily affected by what they see.
- ductile
- Ductile means able to be drawn into wire, a technical sense that malleable, meaning hammered flat, does not cover.
Opposites
Word family
- malleability noun
- the quality of being malleable
- malleably adverb
- in a flexible way, rare
- mallet noun
- a hammer with a large head, from the same Latin root
Commonly confused: malleable or ductile? malleable or malleolus?
malleable vs ductile
Ductile metals can be stretched into wire, while malleable metals can be hammered into sheets.
malleable vs malleolus
The malleolus is a bony bump at the ankle and has an unrelated meaning.
Practice
A blacksmith heats iron until it is soft enough to hammer into a new shape. The iron has become ___.
Choose one answer.
Malleable means able to be shaped by hammering. Brittle, rigid and fragile all describe materials that resist reshaping or break.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “malleable”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.