stiff.
Rigid; hard to bend; inflexible.
Meaning & usage
Rigid; hard to bend; inflexible.
Inflexible; rigid.
Formal in behavior; unrelaxed.
Harsh, severe.
He was eventually caught, and given a stiff fine.
Painful or more rigid than usual as a result of excessive or unaccustomed exercise.
My legs are stiff after climbing that hill yesterday.
Potent.
a stiff drink; a stiff dose; a stiff breeze
Expensive, pricey.
Dead, deceased.
Erect.
Having a dense consistency; thick; (by extension) Difficult to stir.
Adding too much peanut butter to your Peanut Sauce recipe may cause your sauce to turn out too stiff.
Beaten until so aerated that they stand up straight on their own.
beat the egg whites until they are stiff
Of an equation, for which certain numerical solving methods are numerically unstable, unless the step size is taken to be extremely small.
Keeping upright.
Of a shot, landing so close to the flagstick that it should be very easy to sink the ball with the next shot.
Delivered more forcefully than needed, whether intentionally or accidentally, thus causing legitimate pain to the opponent.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *steyp Proto-Germanic *stīfaz Proto-West Germanic *stīf Old English stīf Middle English stif English stiff From Middle English stiff, stiffe, stif, from Old English stīf, from Proto-West Germanic *stīf, from Proto-Germanic *stīfaz, from Proto-Indo-European *steypós. See also West Frisian stiif, Dutch stijf, Norwegian Bokmål stiv, German steif; also Latin stīpes, stīpō, from which English stevedore. The expected Modern English form would be /staɪf/; /stɪf/ is probably originally from compounds such as stiffly, where the vowel was shortened before a consonant cluster.
An average person, usually male, of no particular distinction, skill, or education.
working stiff
A person who is deceived, as a mark or pigeon in a swindle.
She convinced the stiff to go to her hotel room, where her henchman was waiting to rob him.
A cadaver; a dead person.
A flop; a commercial failure.
A person who leaves (especially a restaurant) without paying the bill.
A customer who does not leave a tip.
Any hard hand where it is possible to exceed 21 by drawing an additional card.
Negotiable instruments, possibly forged.
A note or letter surreptitiously sent by an inmate.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *steyp Proto-Germanic *stīfaz Proto-West Germanic *stīf Old English stīf Middle English stif English stiff From Middle English stiff, stiffe, stif, from Old English stīf, from Proto-West Germanic *stīf, from Proto-Germanic *stīfaz, from Proto-Indo-European *steypós. See also West Frisian stiif, Dutch stijf, Norwegian Bokmål stiv, German steif; also Latin stīpes, stīpō, from which English stevedore. The expected Modern English form would be /staɪf/; /stɪf/ is probably originally from compounds such as stiffly, where the vowel was shortened before a consonant cluster.
To fail to pay that which one owes (implicitly or explicitly) to another, especially by departing hastily.
He stiffed me on the tip.
Realizing he had forgotten his wallet, he stiffed the taxi driver when the cab stopped for a red light.
To cheat someone.
To tip ungenerously.
To kill.
To be unsuccessful.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *steyp Proto-Germanic *stīfaz Proto-West Germanic *stīf Old English stīf Middle English stif English stiff From Middle English stiff, stiffe, stif, from Old English stīf, from Proto-West Germanic *stīf, from Proto-Germanic *stīfaz, from Proto-Indo-European *steypós. See also West Frisian stiif, Dutch stijf, Norwegian Bokmål stiv, German steif; also Latin stīpes, stīpō, from which English stevedore. The expected Modern English form would be /staɪf/; /stɪf/ is probably originally from compounds such as stiffly, where the vowel was shortened before a consonant cluster.
Of the wind, with great force; strongly.
Very thoroughly.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *steyp Proto-Germanic *stīfaz Proto-West Germanic *stīf Old English stīf Middle English stif English stiff From Middle English stiff, stiffe, stif, from Old English stīf, from Proto-West Germanic *stīf, from Proto-Germanic *stīfaz, from Proto-Indo-European *steypós. See also West Frisian stiif, Dutch stijf, Norwegian Bokmål stiv, German steif; also Latin stīpes, stīpō, from which English stevedore. The expected Modern English form would be /staɪf/; /stɪf/ is probably originally from compounds such as stiffly, where the vowel was shortened before a consonant cluster.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.