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Not easy or agreeable to the taste; stiff; rigid; ungraceful; repelling; as, a hard style. Figures harder than even the marble itself. Dryden.

To accustom by labor or suffering to endure with constancy; to strengthen; to stiffen; to inure; also, to confirm in wickedness or shame; to make unimpressionable. "Harden not your heart." Ps. xcv. 8. I would harden myself in sorrow. Job vi. 10.

ndian rodents, allied to the porcupines, but with ratlike tails, and few quills, or only stiff bristles. The hedgehog rats belong to Capromys, Plagiodon, and allied genera. -- Hedgehog shell (Zoöl.), any spinose, marine, univalve shell of the genus Murex. -- Hedgehog thistle (Bot.), a plant of the Cactus family, glob…

A border made on sheet-metal ware by doubling over the edge of the sheet, to stiffen it and remove the sharp edge.

Pubescent with coarse or stiff hairs. Gray.

Beset with stiff hairs or bristles.

fore and aft, usually above deck, and intended to increase the longitudinal strength and stiffness. Used chiefly in American river and lake steamers. Called also hogging frame, and hogback.

xpanding the skirts of ladies' dresses; crinoline; -- used chiefly in the plural. Though stiff with hoops, and armed with ribs of whale. Pope.

Forcible manipulation of a dislocated, stiff, or painful joint.

rgery, to make immovable (a naturally mobile part, as a joint) by the use of splints, or stiffened bandages.

or state of being indocile; dullness of intellect; unteachableness; intractableness. The stiffness and indocility of the Pharisees. W. Montagu.

Hardness of character, manner, sensibility, etc.; obduracy; stiffness; want of pliancy or feeling. A certain induration of character had arisen from long habits of business. Coleridge.

h.), the dogma that the pope can not, when acting in his official character of supreme pontiff, err in defining a doctrine of Christian faith or rule of morals, to be held by the church. This was decreed by the Ecumenical Council at the Vatican, July 18, 1870.

uality or state of being inflexible, or not capable of being bent or changed; unyielding stiffness; inflexibleness; rigidity; firmness of will or purpose; unbending pertinacity; steadfastness; resoluteness; unchangeableness; obstinacy. The inflexibility of mechanism. A. Baxter. That grave inflexibility of soul. Churchi…

Not capable of being bent; stiff; rigid; firm; unyielding.

arenthesis thrown into quoted matter to explain an obscure word or words; -- as, the plaintiff avers that the defendant said that he (innuendo the plaintiff) was a thief. Wharton.

ffered judgment to pass against him by default, in order to ascertain and assess the plaintiff's damages, where they can not readily be ascertained by mere calculation. Burrill.

s condition; a viscous, translucent substance in a condition between liquid and solid; a stiffened solution of gelatin, gum, or the like.

character. W. Irving. -- John Doe (Law), the name formerly given to the fictitious plaintiff in an action of ejectment. Mozley & W. -- John Doree, John Dory. Etym: [John (or F. jaune yellow) + Doree, Dory.] (Zoöl.) An oval, compressed, European food fish (Zeus faber). Its color is yellow and olive, with golden, silv…

A joining of parties as plaintiffs or defendants in a suit.