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To swell; to cause to swell, or puff up. To swell, tumefy, stiffen, not the diction only, but the tenor of the thought. De Quincey.

Not bending; not suffering flexure; not yielding to pressure; stiff; -- applied to material things. Flies o'er unbending corn, and skims along the main. Pope.

Not easy in manner; constrained; stiff; awkward; not graceful; as, an uneasy deportment.

Any of several plants bearing thorns or stiff hooked appendages, which catch and tear the clothing, as:

Not stiff; pliant; frail; soft; as, the weak stalk of a plant.

A plate or thin portion, continuous or perforated, connecting stiffening ribs or flanges, or other parts of an object. Specifically: --

nce resembling horn, taken from the upper jaw of the right whale; baleen. It is used as a stiffening in stays, fans, screens, and for various other purposes. See Baleen.

A kind of canvaslike cotton fabric, used to stiffen and protect the lower part of trousers and of the skirts of women's dresses, etc.; -- so called from Wigan, the name of a town in Lancashire, England.

rty; to prevent starvation. See Wolf, 3, above. Tennyson. -- Wolf dog. (Zoöl.) (a) The mastiff, or shepherd dog, of the Pyrenees, supposed by some authors to be one of the ancestors of the St. Bernard dog. (b) The Irish greyhound, supposed to have been used formerly by the Danes for chasing wolves. (c) A dog bred betw…

Clumsy; awkward; ungainly; stiff; spiritless. When a bold man is out of countenance, he makes a very wooden figure on it. Collier. His singing was, I confess, a little wooden. G. MacDonald. Wooden spoon. (a) (Cambridge University, Eng.) The last junior optime who takes a university degree, -- denoting one who is only f…

rent domestic breeds, which range in size from that of the common ox to that of a large mastiff.