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Stiffen   /stˈɪfən/   Listen
verb
Stiffen  v. t.  (past & past part. stiffened; pres. part. stiffening)  
1.
To make stiff; to make less pliant or flexible; as, to stiffen cloth with starch. "Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood."
2.
To inspissate; to make more thick or viscous; as, to stiffen paste.
3.
To make torpid; to benumb.



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






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Stiffen" Quotes from Famous Books



... for while tar, as ordinarily used, makes the hemp more pliable to the rope-maker, and also renders the rope itself more convenient to the sailor for common ship use; yet, not only would the ordinary quantity too much stiffen the whale-line for the close coiling to which it must be subjected; but as most seamen are beginning to learn, tar in general by no means adds to the rope's durability or strength, however much it may give it compactness and gloss. Of late years the Manilla ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... an absent, far-away look, his arms and legs seemed to stiffen, and a tremor ran through his limbs. Chris watched him with ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... in beaded rows drops deck the spray, While Phoebus grants a momentary ray, Let but a cloud's broad shadow intervene, And stiffen'd into gems the drops are seen; And down the furrow'd oak's broad southern side Streams of dissolving rime ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield

... boat on the lake, or, at least, faster than any with which I had had an opportunity to measure paces. But it made but little difference how fast she was, as long as there was hardly wind enough to stiffen the mainsail. Mr. Parasyte ordered the men to take their places on the thwarts, and ship their oars. I saw that a little farther out from the shore there was a ripple on the water, and putting one of my oars out at the stern, I sculled till I caught the ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic

... for it so long and so repeatedly, till at last the iron sinew gives way: no, but for the sake of bending the iron sinew itself, and when it is bent in one direction, I conclude He does not mean to stiffen it there, but would have it bend perhaps back to the very same position as at first it was so hard to bend it from, with this one wide difference, that in the first case it was so in its own will, but now in His will. Perhaps thou thinkest I am darkening counsel: ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall


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