Definition of "ringent" []

• Having gaping liplike parts, as the corolla of some flowers or the shells of certain bivalves. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Stafford near Dunrobin Castle in Sutherlandshire, in which the usual ringent form of the corolla was replaced by the form called salver-shaped."
• "The whorls of bloom issue from half-globular arrangements of buds and persistent calyces; each flower is an inch long; corolla ringent, or gaping; helmet, or upper division, linear; the seed organs are longer; the calyx tubular, having five minute teeth, being striped and grooved; the whole head, or whorl, is supported by a leafy bract, the leaflets being of a pale green colour, tinted with red."
• "USA may not give a hoot for Palestinian lives but we have st ringent laws regarding cruelty to animals and animal abuse."