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Synonyms

stiff as a board

Idioms  

  1. Also, stiff as a poker. Inflexible, rigidly formal, unbending, as in This cloth is stiff as a board; what happened to it? or There he stood, stiff as a poker, unwilling to give an inch. The board in the first simile for rigidity is a slab of wood; the second, alluding to the iron implement used to push around logs in open fires, dates from the late 1700s.

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.

Unmoving and stiff as a board, she appeared to be deceased.

From Science Magazine • Oct. 10, 2023

She was as stiff as a board and never once on the beat during that number, and no amount of professional dancers could hide that.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 5, 2016

"Hopefully it's nothing serious but he's not quite sure – he'll either wake up and there'll be nothing there or he'll be as stiff as a board," said Moores.

From The Guardian • May 16, 2012

Mirwais’s father, Mr. Haideri, was awoken by the 5 a.m. call to prayer at the Charahi Qambar camp on Jan. 15 and found his son stiff as a board.

From New York Times • Feb. 4, 2012

“Now you’ll want to hold it out in front of you and press—” I press the button and Magnus goes stiff as a board, his thick arms clapping against his sides.

From "Amari and the Night Brothers" by B.B. Alston

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.