stiff
pronunciation
How to pronounce stiff in British English:
UK [stɪf]
How to pronounce stiff in American English:
US [stɪf]
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- Noun:
- an ordinary man
- the dead body of a human being
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- Adjective:
- lacking ease in bending; not limber
- not moving or operating freely
- powerful
- rigidly formal
- hard to overcome or surmount
- of a collar; standing up rather than folded down
- incapable of or resistant to bending
- very drunk
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- Adverb:
- extremely
- in a stiff manner
Word Origin
- stiff
- stiff: [OE] Stiff goes back to prehistoric Germanic *stīfaz ‘inflexible’, source also of German steif, Dutch stiff, Swedish styf, and Danish stiv. This in turn was descended from an Indo-European *stīpos, a derivative of the same base as produced Latin stīpāre ‘press, pack’ (source of English constipate and stevedore), Latvian stipt ‘stiffen’, and Lithuanian stiprùs ‘strong’.=> constipation, stevedore
- stiff (adj.)
- Old English stif "rigid, inflexible," from Proto-Germanic *stifaz "inflexible" (cognates: Dutch stijf, Old High German stif, German steif "stiff;" Old Norse stifla "choke"), from PIE *stipos-, from root *steip- "press together, pack, cram" (cognates: Sanskrit styayate "coagulates," stima "slow;" Greek stia, stion "small stone," steibo "press together;" Latin stipare "pack down, press," stipes "post, tree trunk;" Lithuanian stipti "stiffen," stiprus "strong;" Old Church Slavonic stena "wall"). Of battles and competitions, from mid-13c.; of liquor, from 1813. To keep a stiff upper lip is attested from 1815. Related: Stiffly.
- stiff (v.)
- late 14c., "to make stiff," from stiff (adj.). Meaning "fail to tip" is from 1939, originally among restaurant and hotel workers, probably from stiff (n.), perhaps in slang sense of "corpse" (because dead men pay no tips), or from the "contemptible person" sense. Extended by 1950 to "cheat."
- stiff (n.)
- "corpse, dead body," 1859, slang, from stiff (adj.) which had been associated with notion of rigor mortis since c. 1200. Meaning "working man" first recorded 1930, from earlier genitive sense of "contemptible person," but sometimes merely "man, fellow" (1882). Slang meaning "something or someone bound to lose" is 1890 (originally of racehorses), from notion of "corpse."
Antonym
Example
- 1. Good writing isn 't stiff and formal .
- 2. He was almost sixteen when his legs started cramping and going stiff .
- 3. That means instead of flexible and responsive , cell walls are stiff and rigid .
- 4. As the brain normally ages , it acquires the neural equivalent of sore knees and stiff fingers .
- 5. Mr abhisit has looked less stiff on the stump than in past elections , though it doesn 't come naturally .