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Giving the sensation of tension, stiffness, or contraction. A tensive pain from distension of the parts. Floyer.

One of the stiff hairs situated about the mouth, or on the face, of many animals, and supposed to be tactile organs; a tactile hair.

Stiff; stretched; strained. [Obs.] Johnson.

An affection apparently congenital, consisting in tonic contraction and stiffness of the voluntary muscles occurring after a period of muscular inaction.

A heavy blow with something flat or heavy; a thump. With many a stiff thwack, many a bang, Hard crab tree and old iron rang. Hudibras.

A fit of pettishness, or slight anger; a tiff. After all your fatigue you seem as ready for a tift with me as if you had newly come from church. Blackwood's Mag.

A stiff hat. [Colloq.] Dickens. Tile drain, a drain made of tiles. -- Tile earth, a species of strong, clayey earth; stiff and stubborn land. [Prov. Eng.] -- Tile kiln, a kiln in which tiles are burnt; a tilery. -- Tile ore (Min.), an earthy variety of cuprite. -- Tile red, light red like the color of tiles or brick…

A piece of stiffened lining pasted on the inside of a hat crown.

loth interwoven with gold or silver threads, or embossed with figures. A robe of tissue, stiff with golden wire. Dryden. In their glittering tissues bear emblazed Holy memorials. Milton.

An implement for reducing a stiff soil, resembling a harrow, but running upon wheels. Hebert.

Stiff; rigid; not flexible; stubborn; as, a tough bow. So tough a frame she could not bend. Dryden.

he act of traveling, or journeying from place to place; a journey. With long travel I am stiff and weary. Shak. His travels ended at his country seat. Dryden.

To deny formally, as what the opposite party has alleged. When the plaintiff or defendant advances new matter, he avers it to be true, and traverses what the other party has affirmed. To traverse an indictment or an office is to deny it. And save the expense of long litigious laws, Where suits are traversed, and so lit…

th. Trencher cap, the cap worn by studens at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, having a stiff, flat, square appendage at top. A similar cap used in the United States is called Oxford cap, mortar board, etc. -- Trencher fly, a person who haunts the tables of others; a parasite. [R.] L'Estrange. -- Trencher friend, on…

To strengthen or stiffen, as a beam or girder, by means of a brace or braces.

The art of stiffening or bracing a set of timbers, or the like, by putting in struts, ties, etc., till it has something of the character of a truss.

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.

The murder, or the murderer, of a prophet. "The caitiff vaticide." Pope.