Bender

How to spell bender

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce bender

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does bender mean?

1. nounA person, tool, or thing that bends something, often used in compounds.

Bender in a sentence

• The workshop uses a hydraulic bender to shape the metal pipes.

• A minor fender bender left a small dent in the bumper.

Where does bender come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word grows directly from the native English verb 'bend', which came from the Old English 'bendan', meaning to bring a bow into tension by pulling its string, and more broadly to curve or flex something. That sense of straining a bow widened over the centuries to cover bending any flexible object. The agent suffix '-er' was attached to give 'bender', literally a thing or person that bends. The slang meaning of a long, reckless drinking session emerged in the nineteenth century, the playful idea being that a heavy drinker ends up unable to stand straight, and this colloquial use became especially common in British and Irish speech. Because the spelling is simply the plain verb plus '-er', it holds no real surprises, which keeps the word easy to write.

How the word is built

• bend (from Old English bendan: to bend, flex)
• -er (agent/noun suffix)