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t in many short bends or turns; to curl; to run in wavws; to wrinkle; also, to rustle, as stiff cloth when moved. The green wheat crinkles like a lake. L. T. Trowbridge. And all the rooms Were full of crinkling silks. Mrs. Browning.

A kind of stiff cloth, used chiefly by women, for underskirts, to expand the gown worn over it; -- so called because originally made of hair.

Curling in stiff curls or ringlets; as, crisp hair.

htly against the lower jaw of the horse. He that before ran in the pastures wild Felt the stiff curb control his angry jaws. Drayton. By these men, religion,that should be The curb, is made the spur of tyranny. Denham.

A stiff felt hat with a dome-shaped crown.

Gum, starch, and the like, used in stiffening or finishing silk, linen, and other fabrics.

A stiff flour pudding, boiled in a bag; -- a term used especially by seamen; as, plum duff.

A piece of wood set between two studs, posts, etc., to stiffen and support them.

deed or like instrument on parchment. Some period long past, when clerks engrossed their stiff and formal chirography on more substantial materials. Hawthorne. Laws that may be engrossed on a finger nail. De Quincey.

Term; expression; phrase. "Stiffed with epithets of war." Shak.

State of being stretched to stiffness; tension.

t, created in the first day, God gave no proper place or fixation. Sir W. Raleigh. Marked stiffness or absolute fixation of a joint. Quain. A fixation and confinement of thought to a few objects. Watts.

Yielding to pressure for want of firmness and stiffness; soft and weak; limber; lax; drooping; flabby; as, a flaccid muscle; flaccid flesh. Religious profession . . . has become flacced. I. Taylor. -- Flac"cid*ly, adv. -- Flac"cid*ness, n.

To hang loose without stiffness; to bend down, as flexible bodies; to be loose, yielding, limp. As loose it [the sail] flagged around the mast. T. Moore.

of being turned, bowed, or twisted, without breaking; pliable; yielding to pressure; not stiff or brittle. When the splitting wind Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks. Shak.

ant (Dionæa muscipula), called also Venus's flytrap, the leaves of which are fringed with stiff bristles, and fold together when certain hairs on their upper surface are touched, thus seizing insects that light on them. The insects so caught are afterwards digested by a secretion from the upper surface of the leaves.…

s or rules; punctilious; regular; orderly; methodical; of a prescribed form; exact; prim; stiff; ceremonious; as, a man formal in his dress, his gait, his conversation. A cold-looking, formal garden, cut into angles and rhomboids. W. Irwing. She took off the formal cap that confined her hair. Hawthorne.…

Base course, under Base, n. -- Foundation muslin, an open-worked gummed fabric used for stiffening dresses, bonnets, etc. -- Foundation school, in England, an endowed school. -- To be on a foundation, to be entitled to a support from the proceeds of an endowment, as a scholar or a fellow of a college.…

ervor, ardor, fire, vivacity, etc.; unfeeling; forbidding in manner; dull and unanimated; stiff and formal; as, a frigid constitution; a frigid style; a frigid look or manner; frigid obedience or service.

Want of ardor, animation, vivacity, etc.; coldness of affection or of manner; dullness; stiffness and formality; as, frigidity of a reception, of a bow, etc.