stiffness
Americannoun
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the state or condition of being rigid or firm.
The bicycle’s frame is well balanced, with excellent stiffness throughout.
Conventional wisdom has been that longer knife blades need more carbon for stiffness.
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the state or condition of being unable to move easily.
Proper stretching will help you avoid joint stiffness and muscle tension after a workout.
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lack of ease or grace.
The teacher offers advice on how to get over the stiffness or outright paralysis that can creep in when people make writing into a “big deal.”
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the state or condition of being rigidly formal.
There was a stiffness to the encounter, but the ambassador was not unfriendly.
If representatives meet only under official circumstances, a degree of stiffness is introduced which does not allow people to exchange ideas as freely.
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the state or condition of being excessive, difficult, or severe.
The council expressed concern about the stiffness of the fines and sentences for such minor infractions.
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(of soil) the state or condition of being compact; density.
A variety of sediment samples are needed in order to recover different types of sediment, mainly based on their stiffness.
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Origin of stiffness
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Stiffness and extensibility -- how far a material can stretch or expand without breaking -- are linked because they originate from the same building block: the polymer strands connected by crosslinks.
From Science Daily • Nov. 27, 2024
Stiffness aside, “Boom Boom Pow” was better, as was the relentless “I Gotta Feeling,” which opened and closed the set.
From New York Times • Feb. 7, 2011
Stiffness could not exist under such conditions, and the grave scientists unbent from their dignity, and jested and made merry like a lot of school-boys.
From Bee and Butterfly A Tale of Two Cousins by Madison, Lucy Foster
Stiffness is not politeness, and, while you observe every rule, you may appear to heed none.
From The Gentlemen's Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness Being a Complete Guide for a Gentleman's Conduct in all his Relations Towards Society by Hartley, Cecil B.
Stiffness was the dominant note in her character.
From People of Position by Boehm, H. Richard
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
