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Stiffen   /stˈɪfən/   Listen
verb
Stiffen  v. t.  (past & past part. stiffened; pres. part. stiffening)  
1.
To make stiff; to make less pliant or flexible; as, to stiffen cloth with starch. "Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood."
2.
To inspissate; to make more thick or viscous; as, to stiffen paste.
3.
To make torpid; to benumb.


Stiffen  v. i.  To become stiff or stiffer, in any sense of the adjective. "Like bristles rose my stiffening hair." "The tender soil then stiffening by degrees." "Some souls we see, Grow hard and stiffen with adversity."





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Stiffen" Quotes from Famous Books



... being that the Spaniard's bullet flew wide, while Jack's, aimed by a hand as steady as a rock, struck Alvaros' right elbow, completely shattering the bone and inflicting an injury that the surgeon, at a first glance, thought would probably stiffen the arm for the remainder of its owner's life, to the extent of very seriously disabling him. Under these circumstances Alvaros' second expressed himself satisfied, and declined any further shots; whereupon Jack and his friend left the ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... herself. But this new shrinking from the most characteristic feature of the violent policy—this new softness and fluidity in a personality that when they first reached Maumsey had begun already to stiffen in the fierce mould of militancy—to what could any observer with eyes in their head attribute them but the influence of Mark Winnington—the daily unseen presence of other judgments and other ideals embodied in a man to whom the girl's feelings ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... wrestling with death, he was uttering horrid oaths, and flourishing the cowskin, as though he was tearing the flesh off some helpless slave. One thing is certain, that when he was in health, it was enough to chill the blood, and to stiffen the hair of an ordinary man, to hear Mr. Sevier talk. Nature, or his cruel habits, had given to his face an expression of unusual savageness, even for a slave-driver. Tobacco and rage had worn his teeth short, and nearly every sentence that escaped their compressed grating, was commenced ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... body stiffen, that when he was called it required another ten minutes and a second glass of whisky to unbend his joints and limber up ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... said; and steps came along through the hall; she opened the door as he came up. Mr. Buxton stopped abruptly, and the two men drew themselves up and seemed to stiffen, ever so slightly. A shade of aggressive contempt came on Hubert's keen brown face that towered up so near the low oak ceiling; while Mr. Buxton's eyelids just drooped, and his features seemed to sharpen. There was an unpleasant silence: Isabel ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson


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