These words suggest the ease with which something will respond to an external force without breaking. Adaptable is the most general and most abstract, suggesting the favourable quality of an ingenious or practical ability to alter habit as a response to changed circumstances: The ice ages exterminated many less adaptable species. Yielding is nearly as abstract as adaptable but more readily suggests an unfavourable passivity or unassertiveness than a favourable ability to improvise responses to challenges: the familiar stereotype that makes out all women as helpless and yielding .

Flexible and elastic have concrete applications to physical objects in which case they suggest something with spring to it or something that will quickly resume its shape after being distorted. Elastic suggests stretching, as of a band or membrane; flexible suggest bending, as of a rod or tube. Adjustable is applied to objects that can be manually altered to suit different uses or purposes: An adjustable car seat slides backwards or forwards to accommodate the driver.

Used in the sense of adaptable , elastic suggests the ability to recover quickly in the face of a threat or upset: a man who was amazingly elastic and imperturbable under pressure. Elastic can also refer to a projected set of requirements, rules, or figures, when they are open to revision in the light of experience: an elastic budget that allows for unexpected outlays for new equipment; elastic , sensible rules drawn up by the students themselves. Flexible , in this context, is closer in meaning to adaptable than any other word here. It does not necessarily suggest a permanent adjustment to change but rather momentary shifts of position to maintain balance: a society so flexible in the face of new influences as to lack unity or purpose. As in this example, flexible may suggest low standards or a chameleonic nature, whereas adaptable can suggest a slow, hard-won process of decisive movement in a new direction.