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🔗 Easily shaped 🧠 Easily influenced
ductile

ductile

1 8.1
Easily influenced by other people
  • adjective
  • /ˈdʌk.tɪl/
  • Formal
translation icon : maleable
  • He was a ductile leader, always open to suggestions and willing to change his plans based on feedback.

Examples

  • You're ductile.

    Flubber (1997)

  • The teacher found her students to be quite ductile in their thinking, adapting quickly to new ideas.

  • The assistant, she's ductile.

    Thunderbolts* (2025)

  • Behaving unethically is generally understood to be a result of allowing desire or the passions to triumph over the golden, ductile cord of reason.

    Academic text (1999)

  • Her ductile personality made it easy for her to form friendships with a wide range of people.

Synonyms

malleable
vsductile
12 6.0

Easily influenced by others and likely to change opinions

is influenced by others rather than changing by choice
pliable
vsductile
3 5.4

Easily accepts other people's ideas

is receptive to influence rather than only flexible by choice
persuasible
vsductile
7.8

Open to changing your mind when given good reasons

is open to influence and yielding more generally
swayable
vsductile
7.0

Easily persuaded to change their mind

is willing to be influenced beyond just opinion changes
fictile
vsductile
  • Archaic
9.9

Easily influenced by others

is more about personal yielding to influence than group shaping
suasible
vsductile
9.9

Being easily persuaded by other people or by what they say

is open to influence generally, not only to reasoned argument
manipulatable
vsductile
6.8

Easy for someone to change or control

is susceptible to influence and persuasion, not deliberate misuse

Antonyms

stubborn
217 2.9

Not willing to change your mind even when others try to persuade you

inflexible
1 4.9

Not able to bend or change shape

How Yielding

submissive
38 5.1
amenable
14 5.9
ductile
  • Formal
1 8.1
reluctant
247 3.5
stubborn
217 2.9
resistant
20 4.3

Surface Forms

ductile positive
ductiler comparative
ductilest superlative

Morphology

ductile = duct (semi-transparent) = duct + ile

The sense 'easily influenced, yielding' is a metaphorical extension of the original 'can be led/drawn', but this relation is not obvious to typical learners who know only the English noun 'duct'.

Etymology

Ductile comes from the Latin root duc- / ducere 'to lead', the same root in conduct, and a helpful way to remember it is to think of a person who is easily 'led'. That's why a ductile person is willing to change or accept guidance easily.