rigour
UK/ˈɹɪɡə(ɹ)/
rigour noun: severity or strictness. Also the misspelling of rigor.
Noun
rigour (countable and uncountable, plural rigours)
- Severity or strictness.
- And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour: And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in morter, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Exodus 1:13–14
- Harshness, as of climate.
- A feeling of cold with shivering accompanied by a rise in body temperature.
- Character of being unyielding or inflexible.
- Shrewd questioning.
- Higher level of difficulty.
Also used as
rigour is also the misspelling of rigor.
Forms of rigour
| plural | rigours |
|---|---|
| alternative form | rigor |
Origin of rigour
From Middle English rigour, from Anglo-Norman, from Old French rigor, from Latin rigor (“stiffness, rigidity, rigor, cold, harshness”), from rigere (“to be rigid”). Compare French rigueur.
Words formed from rigour
Phrases with rigour
Words that rhyme with rigour
Questions about rigour
- What does rigour mean?
- Rigour means severity or strictness.
- What part of speech is rigour?
- Rigour is a noun.
- How do you pronounce rigour?
- Rigour is pronounced /ˈɹɪɡə(ɹ)/ (UK).
- What is the plural of rigour?
- The plural of rigour is rigours.
Words near rigour in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: rigour (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-rigour.ogg.
Cite this entry: “rigour.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rigour. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.