recumbent

adjectiveC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #15,164 of 15,258mostly written

Recumbent means lying down. A recumbent figure, a recumbent posture, recumbent on the tomb.

It is a formal word and belongs to sculpture, to medicine and to a particular kind of bicycle. A recumbent bicycle is faster than an upright one and far harder to see in traffic.

Definitions of recumbent

1adjectiverecumbentLying down.C2
“The recumbent figure on the tomb had lost both hands.”

recumbent is a position.

Where it comes from

Latin recumbens comes from recumbere, to lie back, from re plus cubare, to lie down.

Proto-Indo-European
*ḱewb-
English, today
recumbent

Built from

recumbō · Latin — to recline

From Latin - present participle recumbēns, from recumbō (“to recline”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

recumbent in the wild

Speed recumbents are generally faster than upright bicycles, but they were banned by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) in 1934.
Recumbent bicycle
Some recumbent riders may choose this type of design for ergonomic reasons: the rider's weight is distributed comfortably over a larger area, supported by back and buttocks.
Recumbent bicycle
The resulting structure may include large-scale recumbent folds, shearing along the fault plane, imbricate thrust stacks, fensters and klippes.
Nappe
Recumbent stone circles typically enclose a ring cairn and the stones are graded in size so that the smallest faces the recumbent.
Recumbent stone circle
Crests can be recumbent or recursive, depending on the species.
Crest (feathers)

1 / 3

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

← Vocabulary