The plumpness of a child and the turgescence of young cells are but the expression of high osmotic tension, while relaxation and flaccidity of the tissues in old age betrays the fall of osmotic pressure in the intracellular tissues.
"The Mechanism of Life"
Stéphane Leduc
Then suddenly he beheld an extraordinary and dreadful transformation take place in the countenance thrust so close to his own; the eyes winked several times with incredible rapidity, and then rolled upward and inward; the jaws gaped into a dreadful and cavernous yawn; the pistol fell with a clatter to the floor, and the next moment the muscles, so rigid but an instant before, relaxed into a limp and listless flaccidity.
"Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates"
Howard I. Pyle
The curious intellectual flaccidity of the present day seems to be "put off" by the "ticket" names; but no one who has the true literary sense cares for these one way or another, or is more disturbed by them than if they were Wilkins and Jones.
"The English Novel"
George Saintsbury