the.com/deformability
How much a thing can bend before it admits it's broken.
means The degree to which a material or object can change shape under stress without breaking.
from Built straightforwardly from 'deform' plus the suffix '-ability.' 'Deform' traces back to Latin deformare — de- ('away from, undoing') joined to formare ('to form, shape'), from forma ('shape, form'). So the word literally carries the sense of 'capacity to be shaped away from its original form' — a sober engineering term that quietly admits every solid thing has a breaking point, it's just a matter of how far you can push it first.
- red blood cells
- squeeze through capillaries half their width
- metric used
- ratio of stress to shape change, not size
- cancer cells
- often more deformable, easing their escape through tissue
- materials science
- tradeoff constant between flexibility and structural strength