Word.ws English Dictionary

stiff as a board

stiff as a board adjective: very stiff.

Adjective

stiff as a board (not comparable)

  1. (simile) Very stiff.
    • The rigidity of the corpse was excessive; after about two hours and a half it was stiff as a board.1858, The London Lancet, page 408
    • 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

Questions about stiff as a board

What does stiff as a board mean?
Stiff as a board means very stiff.
What part of speech is stiff as a board?
Stiff as a board is an adjective.

Words near stiff as a board in the dictionary

  1. stifado
  2. stifados
  3. stiff
  4. stiff 'un
  5. stiff 'uns
  6. stiff as a board
  7. stiff as a poker
  8. stiff cheddar
  9. stiff man syndrome
  10. stiff neck
  11. stiff necks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stiff as a board (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-stiff as a board.ogg.

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