stiff as a board

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.

Example Sentences

The body language at the defense table fluctuated between stiff-as-a-board avoidance and utter defeat.

From The Daily Beast

Related Words

• arthritic
• creaky
• rigid
• solid
• stark
• tense
• thick
• tight
• wooden