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.

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Example Sentences

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

I was still sitting there like a marble statue of Distressa, Patron Saint of Dread and Dumbfoundedness: mouth and eyes wide open, arms and legs sticking out, and everything as stiff as a board.

From "Ida B" by Katherine Hannigan

Related Words

• arthritic
• creaky
• rigid
• solid
• stark
• tense
• thick
• tight
• wooden