stiffness
Americannoun
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stiffnesses
plural
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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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Etymology
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.
See Examples For:
These benefits include reducing blood pressure and vascular stiffness, improving the activation of neurons in the brain, reducing inflammation in the brain, lowering resting norepinephrine, and improving sleep.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 11, 2026
But by increasing blood flow, reducing muscle stiffness and increasing serotonin, a hard massage can take on “some components of travel fatigue,” Katzenback said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
His lawsuit alleged that this impacted upon a ski holiday, as well as his exercise regime as "attempts at strenuous athletic activity would cause significant exacerbations of pain and stiffness".
From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026
Longer supplementation was also associated with reduced pain and stiffness among people with osteoarthritis.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 5, 2026
He saw her hands then, the awk-ward way she held them, the raw red scars, the stiffness of the last two fingers on her left.
From "A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin
Increasingly it was more difficult to fight the aches and stiffnesses which tried to keep her in bed in the morning—not that they ever succeeded.
From "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck
The youthful works of genius are generally the best, their very crudities and stiffnesses adorable.
From The Altar Fire by Arthur Christopher Benson
And the muslins and blue ribbons will be wonderful filmy creations, as different from the Early Victorian stiffnesses as anything you can possibly imagine.
From Betty Trevor by Victor Prout
It blows fogs, foul vapours, joint- stiffnesses, agues, pestilences, over us here,—yes, here!
From The Adventures of Harry Richmond — Volume 4 by George Meredith
He seems to have loved the very stiffnesses of the form in which he worked.
From Euripedes and His Age by Gilbert Murray
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.
