- stick out
- stick out *bulge, jut, protuberate, protrude, project, overhang, beetleAnalogous words: *extend, prolong, elongate, lengthen: *expand, swell, distend: obtrude (see INTRUDE) stiff adj Stiff, rigid, inflexible, tense, stark, wooden can mean so firm, hard, or tough in texture, consistency, or quality as to be impossible or highly difficult to bend or enliven.Stiff, the most common word of this group, is applicable where this condition exists in any noticeable degree; it may describe either a desirable or an undesirable quality, because, except in its extended senses, it merely implies a condition and carries neither depreciative nor commendatory connotations{
an edition of a book with stiff covers
}{he wants a cane that is very stiff
}{dislike a stiff custard
}{every gust made a noise like the rattling of dry bones in the stiff toddy palms outside— Kipling
}{sitting ... on the edge of a stiff chair—F. S. Fitzgerald
}In its extended senses stiff, when applied to persons or their manners and their expression, usually suggests either extreme formality and coldness{he replied with stiff condescension
}{she preferred the easygoing parties of this day to the stiff entertainments she had known in her youth
}or a lack of ease, grace, or graciousness in dealing with others{seemed to be struggling with her stiff reserve to give him comfort— Archibald Marshall
}{Brutus had ... a hard face, a pedantic style in speech and writing, and a stiff ungracious character— Buchan
}{he seemed suddenly uneasy ... I could tell by the drop of the head and by the stiff intent set of the body— Dahl
}When applied to something that must be overcome or must be accomplished, the term implies unusual difficulty or the need of great exertion{a stiff ascent
}{a stiff opposition
}{a stiff examination
}{a stiff task
}{the casual reader will find certain parts of this book stiff going— Linton
}and when applied to something that under particular circumstances or in a particular case has lost its usual or typical pliancy or pliability, stiff implies difficulty (as in using, moving, or handling){branches stiff with ice
}{limbs stiff with cold
}{he grew stiff with fear
}In a variety of other senses, stiff implies harshness or extreme severity{a stiff sentence
}{a stiff penalty
}or great strength or violence{a stiff breeze
}{a stiff dose
}{the two drinks he had drunk, both stiff ones, had clouded his mind— Styron
}Rigid (for extended senses see RIGID 2) implies so high a degree of stiffness that the thing so described cannot be bent or flexed without breaking it{an airship with a rigid hull
}{a bridge supported by a series of rigid masonry arches
}{a rigid crosspiece
}Inflexible (for extended sense see INFLEXIBLE 2) differs from rigid only in suggesting a lack of limberness or an incapacity for being bent rather than a texture or consistency that resists bending or deforming. Consequently it is often used when a less precise term is needed and merely an approach to rigidity is suggested{an inflexible metal
}{snakes . . . with portions of their bodies still numb and inflexible, waiting for the sun to thaw them out— Thoreau
}Tense (see also TIGHT 1) occurs especially in reference to bodily structures (as muscles, fibers, or membranes) that are stretched so tight, or so strained by effort or excitement, that they have lost their elasticity or flexibility either for the time being or permanently{tense arteries
}{tense nerves
}{with muscles as tense as those of a tiger about to spring
}{only his tense movements, the rather rigid way he held himself, the habitual drumming of his fingers, were in any way abnormal— Wouk
}Stark usually suggests a stiffness that is associated with loss of life, warmth, power, vitality, or fluidity and therefore often also connotes desolation, barrenness, death, or present valuelessness; frequently it is accompanied by stiff or rigid{many a nobleman lies stark and stiff— Shak.
}{cut flowers before they actually die . . . stretch themselves out with a palpable jerk, stark and rigid— Powys
}{here all the surfaces remained stark and unyielding, thin and sharp— Santayana
}{rats .. . danced comically before they died, and lay in the scuppers stark and ruffled— Sinclair Lewis
}Often stark is merely an intensive (often an adverb) meaning little more than such as is stated or described without qualification{rich men who were once stark poor— Brinig
}{he stood in stark terror
}{they . . . wrote stark nonsense— Quiller-Couch
}Wooden suggests not only the hardness and inflexibility of wood but its dryness and its lack of suppleness and plasticity; consequently the term suggests not only stiffness and lack of life and grace but often clumsiness or deadness or heaviness of spirit{Kim took a few paces in a stiff wooden style— Kipling
}{the courtroom scene was . . . prosy, wooden, and lifeless— Elmer Rice
}{he appears wooden, remote, often addicted to incredible posturings— Rothman
}Analogous words: tough, tenacious, *strong, stout: *firm, hard, solid: formal, conventional, ceremonious (see CEREMONIAL): frigid, *cold, cool: difficult, *hard, arduousAntonyms: relaxed: supple
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
