Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To make or become stiff or stiffer.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To become stiff. To become less flexible or pliant; become rigid.
- To become less soft or fluid; grow thicker or harder; become inspissated: as, jellies stiffen as they cool.
- To become steady and strong: as. a stiffening breeze.
- To become unyielding; grow rigid, obstinate, or formal.
- To become higher in price; become firmer or more unyielding: as, the market stiffens.
- To make stiff. To make less pliant or flexible.
- To make rigid, constrained, formal, or habitual.
- To make more thick or viscous; inspissate: as, to stiffen paste.
- To make stubborn or obstinate.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To make stiff; to make less pliant or flexible.
- v. To inspissate; to make more thick or viscous.
- v. To make torpid; to benumb.
- v. To become stiff or stiffer, in any sense of the adjective.
WordNet 3.0
- v. become stiff or stiffer
- v. make stiff or stiffer
- v. restrict.
Examples
“But the title might stiffen a cock or two in Dubuque.”
“Dilloh's expression stiffen eL "You could talk to me.”
“What he could not abide was negligence on part of officer or man, on part of superior or inferior, and he sought to "stiffen" Plume forthwith.”
“Get them all on-side by creating tiny eye-contact relationships with them, so when you get interrupted, they all kind of stiffen in your defense.”
“Older discs, joints and tendons dehydrate and stiffen, becoming intolerant of pounding and jumping, but that's no reason not to be active, she says.”
“She made her voice sound falsely bright and watched him stiffen.”
“Much progress has been made across the country, but such progress will be fragile indeed if we do not stiffen our spines against the temptation to lower the bar.”
“American frigates in single-ship actions inflicted several startling defeats on the British, the strategic impact of which was merely to fire the outrage and stiffen the resolve of the British public.”
“The game asks people to lie down on objects, but stiffen their bodies the same way they would if they were standing upright.”
The Wall Street Journal: How Planking Became the Internet's Latest Bored Game
“The dark grey walls roared back at him so violently he could feel his belly tingle and his inner ear hairs stiffen.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘stiffen’.
-
SMILE and other emotive verbs
Single verbs that describe expression or emotional reaction. "He __ed" (smiled/gulped/scoffed...)
smile, beam, sneer, scoff, giggle, laugh, snigger, scowl, grin, leer, wince, grimace and 97 more...
-
Strengthen
reinforce, stiffen, harden, braze, imbue, fortify, dig in, armor
-
wording it!
epitaph, epiphany, epistolary, colloquial, saga, ambrosia, pun, euphony, troubadour, deity, toil, stiffen and 4 more...
-
to nounen and adjectiven
Verbs constructed with the -en suffix.
hearten, gladden, flatten, smarten, blacken, frighten, lighten, brighten, liven, shorten, heighten, fatten and 23 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for stiffen.
Comments
No comments yet...
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.