Patrick Netter et al.Dan Koeppel
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If you're ready to take your vocabulary lying down, you'll want to be familiar with the synonyms recumbent, prone, supine, and prostrate, all of which mean "lying down." Recumbent, which derives from the Latin prefix re- and the verb cumbere, meaning "to lie down," focuses on the posture or position native to sleeping or resting. Prone describes someone who is lying facedown, as, for example, in doing push-ups. Supine flips it over, suggesting the position of someone lying inert on the back, while prostrate implies a full-scale physical collapse or submission, regardless of the exact position of the defeated body. Recumbent, dating from 17th century, is the newest of the four words; the others all entered English before the 16th century.
Examples of recumbent in a Sentence
Roland Littlewood, Times Literary Supplement, September 1984
A recumbent figure started up from the grass and came running toward them through the flickering screen of light and shade.
—Willa Cather, O Pioneers!, 1913
The Egyptian sphinx has the body of a recumbent lion.
Ben Coxworth, New Atlas, 1 Nov. 2024
Type of bike Generally, there are five different types of exercise bikes: upright, recumbent, spin, air, or folding-style.
—Danielle Dimeglio, SELF, 31 Oct. 2024
The reissue contains a new preface by Benjamin Moser, the biographer of Susan Sontag, one of Hujar’s dear friends, who wrote the introduction to the first edition, and also appears in an iconic picture therein, recumbent with upraised arms folded to cradle her head.
—Jackson Davidow, ARTnews.com, 3 Sep. 2019
The prize of the collection—a pallid, recumbent, half-naked Cleopatra, by Artemisia Gentileschi—was on loan to a museum, leaving a ghostly rectangle of space on a wall near the kitchen, where a litter box was discreetly positioned.
—Rebecca Mead, The New Yorker, 22 July 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Recumbent.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/recumbent. Accessed 23 Nov. 2024.
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recumbent
adjective
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recumbent
adjective
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