Definition of "the bends" []

• A sometimes fatal condition resulting from the formation of nitrogen bubbles in the blood and tissues, because of too rapid decompression, seen especially in deep-sea divers ascending rapidly from a dive. It is characterized by severe pains in the joints and chest, skin irritation, cramps, nausea, and paralysis. (noun)

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• "His banner was "bendy," and on one of the bends was the Emperor's arms; on another were the arms of the Sultan of Harapha, and on the other, those of the Sultan of Grand Cairo."
• "Then he cut left into Magazine Gap Road, down the hill, the bends trickier, the traffic building up now and slower."
• "He shows me how, in 1983, he made the first bends in the trunks, leaning the trees anticlockwise by making a series of saw cuts nearly all the way through the growing trunk on the insides of the bends to allow for compression, binding the wounds with damp cloth under plastic until the cambium layer had healed, guiding and supporting the trees on stakes."