Adjacent Words

Stiffness definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

STIFFNESS, n.
1. Rigidness; want of pliableness or flexibility; the firm texture or state of a substance which renders it difficult to bend it; as the stiffness or iron or wood; the stiffness of a frozen limb.
2. Thickness; spissitude; a state between softness and hardness; as the stiffness of sirup, paste, size or starch.
3. Torpidness; inaptitude to motion.
An icy stiffness benumbs my blood.
4. Tension; as the stiffness of a cord.
5. Obstinacy; stubbornness; contumaciousness.
The vices of old age have the stiffness of it too.
Stiffness of mind is not from adherence to truth, but submission to prejudice.
6. Formality of manner; constraint; affected precision.
All this religion sat easily upon him, without stiffness and constraint.
7. Rigorousness; harshness.
But speak no word to her of these sad plights, which her too constant stiffness doth constrain.
8. Affected or constrained manner of expression or writing; want of natural simplicity and ease; as stiffness of style.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: the physical property of being inflexible and hard to bend
2: the property of moving with pain or difficulty; "he awoke with a painful stiffness in his neck"
3: firm resoluteness in purpose or opinion or action; "a charming host without any touch of stiffness or pomposity"
4: the inelegance of someone stiff and unrelaxed (as by embarrassment) [syn: awkwardness, clumsiness, gracelessness, stiffness]
5: excessive sternness; "severity of character"; "the harshness of his punishment was inhuman"; "the rigors of boot camp" [syn: severity, severeness, harshness, rigor, rigour, rigorousness, rigourousness, inclemency, hardness, stiffness]

Merriam Webster's

noun see stiff I

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Stiffness Stiff"ness, n. The quality or state of being stiff; as, the stiffness of cloth or of paste; stiffness of manner; stiffness of character. The vices of old age have the stiffness of it too. --South.

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. 1. Rigidity, inflexibility, rigidness, rigor, hardness, starkness. 2. Thickness, spissitude, density, compactness, denseness, consistence. 3. Stubbornness, obstinacy, pertinacity, contumaciousness, inflexibility. 4. Severity, rigor, strictness, harshness, rigorousness, austerity, sternness. 5. Formality, precision, constraint, primness, frigidity. 6. Tension, tenseness. 7. Torpidness, torpor, rigidity.

Moby Thesaurus

adamantness, aridity, barrenness, bloodlessness, buckram, ceremonial, ceremoniousness, ceremony, characterlessness, cohesiveness, colorlessness, costliness, deadness, dearness, dignity, dismalness, dourness, dragginess, dreariness, dryness, dullness, durability, dustiness, effeteness, emptiness, etiolation, extrinsicality, firmness, flatness, flintiness, form, formality, formalization, fundamentalism, gravity, great cost, grimness, hard-bittenness, hard-nosedness, hardiness, hardness, heaviness, highness, hollowness, immovability, immutability, impliability, inanity, inelasticity, inexcitability, inexorability, inflexibility, infrangibility, insipidity, insipidness, intransigeance, intransigence, intransigency, intransigentism, irreconcilability, jejunity, lastingness, leadenness, leatherlikeness, lifelessness, lowness of spirit, luxuriousness, obduracy, obdurateness, obstinacy, orthodoxy, paleness, pallor, pointlessness, pokiness, pomp, pomposity, ponderousness, precisianism, primness, purism, puritanism, relentlessness, renitence, renitency, resistance, richness, rigidity, rigidness, rigor, rigorism, rigorousness, ritual, rituality, ropiness, slowness, solemnity, spiritlessness, stamina, starchiness, steeliness, steepness, sterility, sternness, stiff temper, stiltedness, stodginess, strength, stringiness, stubbornness, stuffiness, stylization, sumptuousness, superficiality, tastelessness, tautness, tediousness, tenacity, tenseness, tension, tensity, tightness, toughness, unalterability, unbendingness, unbreakability, unbreakableness, unchangeability, uncompromisingness, ungivingness, uninterestingness, unliveliness, unrelentingness, unyieldingness, vapidity, vapidness, viscidity, vitality, weight, woodenness