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Something used to make anything stiff. Stiffening order (Com.), a permission granted by the customs department to take cargo or ballast on board before the old cargo is out, in order to steady the ship.

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

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.…

abric resembling silk gauze; as, wire gauze; cotton gauze. Gauze dresser, one employed in stiffening gauze.

panicle of capsules at the top. The rootstock contains much starch, and has been used in stiffening linen.

A stretching and stiffening of the trunk and extremities, as when fatigued and drowsy.

a mammal is heated to about 50ºC. -- Rigor mortis ( Etym: [L. , rigor of death] , death stiffening; the rigidity of the muscles that occurs at death and lasts till decomposition sets in. It is due to the formation of myosin by the coagulation of the contents of the individual muscle fibers.

uch used for making puddings and as an article of diet for the sick; also, as starch, for stiffening textile fabrics. It is prepared from the stems of several East Indian and Malayan palm trees, but chiefly from the Metroxylon Sagu; also from several cycadaceous plants (Cycas revoluta, Zamia integrifolia, atc.). Portla…

tween the fingers. It is used as a food, in the production of commercial grape sugar, for stiffening linen in laundries, in making paste, etc.

To become stiff or stiffer, in any sense of the adjective. Like bristles rose my stiffening hair. Dryden. The tender soil then stiffening by degrees. Dryden. Some souls we see, Grow hard and stiffen with adversity. Dryden.

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.

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.