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View synonyms for stiff as a board

stiff as a board



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Idioms and Phrases

Also, stiff as a poker . Inflexible, rigidly formal, unbending, as in This cloth is stiff as a board; what happened to it? or There he stood, stiff as a poker, unwilling to give an inch . The board in the first simile for rigidity is a slab of wood; the second, alluding to the iron implement used to push around logs in open fires, dates from the late 1700s.
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Example Sentences

Another stands stiff as a board on the bottom step of a cabin.

Unmoving and stiff as a board, she appeared to be deceased.

At first, Berry couldn’t run: He lay on the floor, rigid, face not moving, “as stiff as a board,” his tour manager recalled.

“Now you’ll want to hold it out in front of you and press—” I press the button and Magnus goes stiff as a board, his thick arms clapping against his sides.

When the Meyers first brought her home, that little girl refused to make eye contact with Mavis and became stiff as a board while she was held.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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