Word.ws English Dictionary

stiff-upper-lipped

stiff-upper-lipped adjective: possessing a stiff upper lip; stoic.

Adjective

stiff-upper-lipped (comparative more stiff-upper-lipped, superlative most stiff-upper-lipped)

  1. (idiomatic) Possessing a stiff upper lip; stoic.
    • His stiff-as-a-board tranditionally ^([sic]) masculine good looks and constrained, stiff-upper lipped portrayal of Ed was a wonderful contrast to Fierstein's androgonous ^([sic]), physically mobile Arnold.1981 December 12, Andrea F. Loewenstein, “Gay Theatre Verité”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 21, page 10

Forms of stiff-upper-lipped

comparativemore stiff-upper-lipped
superlativemost stiff-upper-lipped

Origin of stiff-upper-lipped

From stiff upper lip + -ed.

Questions about stiff-upper-lipped

What does stiff-upper-lipped mean?
Stiff-upper-lipped means possessing a stiff upper lip; stoic.
What part of speech is stiff-upper-lipped?
Stiff-upper-lipped is an adjective.

Words near stiff-upper-lipped in the dictionary

  1. stiff-neckedly
  2. stiff-neckedness
  3. stiff-person syndrome
  4. stiff-tailed duck
  5. stiff-tailed ducks
  6. stiff-upper-lipped
  7. stiff-upper-lippery
  8. stiff-upper-lippy
  9. stiffe
  10. stiffed
  11. stiffed up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stiff-upper-lipped (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.

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Cite this entry: “stiff-upper-lipped.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stiff-upper-lipped. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.