stiff

stiff: 1 adjective
1 BODY if a part of your body is stiff or you are stiff, your muscles hurt and it is difficult to move: Arthritis makes your joints stiff and sore. | stiff neck/back/joint: Alastair woke up with a stiff neck. | feel stiff: I felt really stiff after playing basketball last week.

2 DOOR/DRAWER ETC difficult to move; bend or turn: Pull hard - that drawer's very stiff.

3 PAPER/MATERIAL hard and difficult to bend: a sheet of stiff cardboard

4 MIXTURE thick and almost solid, so that it is not easy to stir: Beat the egg whites until stiff. | stiff dough

5 UNFRIENDLY unfriendly or very formal, so that other people feel uncomfortable: He replied in a stiff, ironic voice.

6 VERY HARD more difficult, strict, or severe than usual: stiff sentence/penalty/fine: There's a stiff fine for speeding. | stiff competition: He'll be facing stiff competition for that job.

7 a stiff wind/breeze a fairly strong wind etc

8 a stiff drink/whisky etc a very strong alcoholic drink

9 keep a stiff upper lip to try to keep calm and not show your feelings in a situation when most people would become upset
— stiffly adverb — stiffness noun (U) 2 adverb
1 bored/scared/worried stiff informal extremely bored etc: As a child I was scared stiff of going down to the cellar.

2 frozen stiff
a) extremely cold: Joey was frozen stiff after walking through the snow.
b) cloth that has frozen stiff is hard because the water in it has become ice
3 noun (C) slang
1 the body of a dead person

2 working stiff AmE informal an ordinary person who works to earn enough money to live
4 verb (T) AmE informal to not pay someone money that you owe them or that they expect to be given, especially by not leaving a tip (tip1 (2)) in a restaurant

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Synonyms:

Rigid, unbending, unyielding, inflexible, stark, subrigid / Firm, tenacious, thick, inspissated / Stubborn, obstinate, pertinacious, tenacious, strong / Rigorous, severe, strict, strait-laced, stringent, peremptory, absolute, positive, austere, dogmatic, uncompromising, inexorable / Formal, constrained, ceremonious, punctilious, prim, starch, stately, chilling, frigid, in buckram / Inelegant, cramped, harsh, crude, graceless, abrupt / Strong, fresh

Look at other dictionaries:

stiff´ly — stiff «stihf», adjective, adverb, noun, verb. –adj. 1. not easily bent; fixed; rigid: »a stiff brush. He wore a stiff collar. 2. hard to move: »a stiff gear. The old hinges on the barn door are stiff. 3. not able to move easily: »a stiff neck.… … Useful english dictionary
Stiff — Stiff, a. [Compar. {Stiffer}; superl. {Stiffest}.] [OE. stif, AS. st[=i]f; akin to D. stijf, G. steif, Dan. stiv, Sw. styf, Icel. st[=i]fr, Lith. stipti to be stiff; cf. L. stipes a post, trunk of a tree, stipare to press, compress. Cf. {Costive} … The Collaborative International Dictionary of English
Stiff — may refer to:*Stiffness, a material s resistance to bending *Stiff differential equation, an equation that exhibits behaviour at two widely different scales (the differential equations describing stiff materials are stiff differential equations)… … Wikipedia
stiff — [stɪf] verb [transitive] informal to not pay someone money that you owe them or that they expect to be given, for example by not leaving a tip in a restaurant see also working stiff * * * Ⅰ. stiff UK US /stɪf/ adjective ► … Financial and business terms
stiff — [stif] adj. [ME stif < OE, akin to Ger steif < IE * stip , a pole, stick together (var. of base * steib(h) , rod) > L stipes, stem, stake, log, stipare, to crowd, cram] 1. hard to bend or stretch; rigid; firm; not flexible or pliant 2.… … English World dictionary
Stiff — bezeichnet: Stiff Records, ein britisches Independent Label Stiff Little Fingers, eine Punkband aus Belfast Stiff man Syndrom, eine neurologische Krankheit Stiff Upper Lip, ein Albumtitel von AC/DC Stiff ist der Familienname folgender Person:… … Deutsch Wikipedia
stiff — stiff; stiff·en; stiff·en·er; stiff·ish; stiff·ly; stiff·ness; … English syllables
stiff — [adj1] hard, inflexible annealed, arthritic, benumbed, brittle, buckram, cemented, chilled, congealed, contracted, creaky, firm, fixed, frozen, graceless, hardened, immalleable, impliable, incompliant, indurate, inelastic, jelled, mechanical,… … New thesaurus
stiff — ► ADJECTIVE 1) not easily bent; rigid. 2) not moving freely; difficult to turn or operate. 3) unable to move easily and without pain. 4) not relaxed or friendly; constrained. 5) severe or strong: stiff fines. 6) (stiff with) informal full of … English terms dictionary
stiff´en|er — stiff|en «STIHF uhn», transitive verb. to make stiff or stiffer: »She stiffened the shirt with starch. –v.i. to become stiff or stiffer: »The jelly will stiffen as it cools. The wind was stiffening as the storm approached. Figurative. He… … Useful english dictionary
stiff|en — «STIHF uhn», transitive verb. to make stiff or stiffer: »She stiffened the shirt with starch. –v.i. to become stiff or stiffer: »The jelly will stiffen as it cools. The wind was stiffening as the storm approached. Figurative. He stiffened with… … Useful english dictionary

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stiff

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Longman dictionary of contemporary English

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