Word.ws English Dictionary

stiffe

stiffe is the obsolete spelling of stiff.

Meaning of stiff

Adjective

stiff (comparative stiffer, superlative stiffest)

  1. Rigid; hard to bend; inflexible.
    • “A tight little craft,” was Austin’s invariable comment on the matron;[…]. ¶ Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable, and from time to time squinting sideways, as usual, in the ever-renewed expectation that he might catch a glimpse of his stiff, retroussé moustache.1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter IX, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    firm, stark
  2. (figuratively) Inflexible; rigid.
  3. Formal in behavior; unrelaxed.
  4. (colloquial) Harsh, severe.
    • He was eventually caught, and given a stiff fine.
    Synonyms:
    brutal, heavy
  5. Painful or more rigid than usual as a result of excessive or unaccustomed exercise.
    • My legs are stiff after climbing that hill yesterday.
  6. Potent.
    • a stiff drink; a stiff dose; a stiff breeze
    Synonyms:
    powerful, strong

See all 32 meanings of stiff

Forms of stiffe

comparativemore stiffe
superlativemost stiffe

Questions about stiffe

What is stiffe the obsolete spelling of?
Stiffe is the obsolete spelling of stiff.

Words near stiffe in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stiffe (page history and authors); stiff (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: “stiffe.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stiffe. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.