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Stiff   Listen
adjective
Stiff  adj.  (compar. stiffer; superl. stiffest)  
1.
Not easily bent; not flexible or pliant; not limber or flaccid; rigid; firm; as, stiff wood, paper, joints. "(They) rising on stiff pennons, tower The mid aerial sky."
2.
Not liquid or fluid; thick and tenacious; inspissated; neither soft nor hard; as, the paste is stiff.
3.
Firm; strong; violent; difficult to oppose; as, a stiff gale or breeze.
4.
Not easily subdued; unyielding; stubborn; obstinate; pertinacious; as, a stiff adversary. "It is a shame to stand stiff in a foolish argument." "A war ensues: the Cretans own their cause, Stiff to defend their hospitable laws."
5.
Not natural and easy; formal; constrained; affected; starched; as, stiff behavior; a stiff style. "The French are open, familiar, and talkative; the Italians stiff, ceremonious, and reserved."
6.
Harsh; disagreeable; severe; hard to bear. (Obs. or Colloq.) "This is stiff news."
7.
(Naut.) Bearing a press of canvas without careening much; as, a stiff vessel; opposed to crank.
8.
Very large, strong, or costly; powerful; as, a stiff charge; a stiff price. (Slang)
Stiff neck, a condition of the neck such that the head can not be moved without difficulty and pain.
Synonyms: Rigid; inflexible; strong; hardly; stubborn; obstinate; pertinacious; harsh; formal; constrained; affected; starched; rigorous.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Stiff" Quotes from Famous Books



... Mr. Spenlow's proctorial gown and stiff cravat took Peggotty down a little, and inspired her with a greater reverence for the man who was gradually becoming more and more etherealized in my eyes every day, and about whom a reflected radiance seemed ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... in his hand when she had slipped the cord twined round his arm. He could scarcely close his fingers on it, so stiff had they become, and he fumbled clumsily before he had cut himself free. Then he rose to ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott

... little in the vicinity of watercourses or hills, in order to get the worst of the road over whilst the horses worked together and were warm, rather than leave a difficult country to be passed over the first thing in the morning, when, for want of exercise, the teams are chill and stiff, and require to be stimulated before they will work well in unison. Our journey to-day was about twenty miles, and the last five being over a rugged hilly road, it was late in the afternoon when we halted ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... surveyed by the citizens, whose furtive yet frequent glances seemed to regard him as something alike suspected and dreadful, yet on no account to be provoked. He heeded them not, but stalked on in the manner affected by the distinguished fanatics of the day; a stiff solemn pace, a severe and at the same time a contemplative look, like that of a man discomposed at the interruptions which earthly objects forced upon him, obliging him by their intrusion to withdraw his thoughts for an instant from ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... directly,' replied Friskarina; 'but really I must get a little warm first, my jaws are quite stiff.' ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin

... thought we were still to the westward of Sestro river. All along this coast the land is low, and full of high trees close to the shore, so that no one can know what place he falls in with, except by means of the latitude. I think we ran 16 leagues that day, as we had all night a stiff gale, with much thunder ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... his great gifts with such sweetness and modesty, and touching with such tenderness and depth the most delicate and the purest of human feelings, and Keble as the editor of Fronde's Remains, forward against Dr. Hampden, breaking off a friendship of years with Dr. Arnold, stiff against Liberal change and indulgent to ancient folly and error, the eulogist of patristic mysticism and Bishop Wilson's "discipline," and busy in the ecclesiastical agitations and legal wranglings of our later days, about ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church

... several miles around is barren in the extreme, consisting for the most part of undulating, stony, forest land. I have heard, however, that there is much good pastoral country at the back. We found no fresh water during our walk; of two wells which had been dug by the settlers, through stiff clay, one was dry, and the other contained a puddle of brackish water, not fit to drink. We met with few birds, but saw many ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... music that brought a curious intensity to her after all these long, dreary months? Her fingers seemed a little stiff at first, and some things had gone out of her mind. Then she dropped her face ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... in line, so perfect and airy in conception, so utterly without spiritual aspiration or life; the present limited in artistic power, but so earnest, so intense, seeming to struggle and burn, amid its stiff and restricted boundaries, for the expression of some diviner ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... periodical containing essays by Johnson in the Spectator vein, issued in 1750-52, but written in that "stiff and cumbrous style which," as Professor Saintsbury remarks, "has been rather unjustly identified with Johnson's manner ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... deadly. It was not silence, for the river murmured in the stiff reeds, and far off in the midnight forest some beast of the night uttered its cry, but a hush, a holding of the breath, an expectant horror. The door, warped and shrunken, was drawn to, but was not fastened, as I could tell by the ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... of Lienz have one very striking feature in their dress—a black felt hat with a broad, stiff brim and a high crown, smaller at the top than at the base. It looks a little like the traditional head-gear of the Pilgrim Fathers, exaggerated. There is a solemnity about it which is fatal ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke

... Beaufort on the flood-tide this morning, it seemed almost as fair as the smooth and lovely canals which Stedman traversed to meet his negro soldiers in Surinam. The air was cool as at home, yet the foliage seemed green, glimpses of stiff tropical vegetation appeared along the banks, with great clumps of shrubs whose pale seed-vessels looked like tardy blossoms. Then we saw on a picturesque point an old plantation, with stately magnolia avenue, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... off and returned with a box of his deadly cigars. Arabian took one without hesitation, and accepted a stiff whisky and soda. While he had been downstairs Garstin had apparently recovered his good humour, or had deliberately made up his mind to take a certain line with his guest from the Cafe Royal. He said nothing about his pictures, made no further allusion to ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... fabrics. Among them are "samit" or "examitur" (a six-thread silk stuff, preciously inwoven with gold threads);[209] and "ciclatoun,"[210] which was remarkable for the lightness of its texture, and was woven with shining gold threads—but though light, it was stiff enough to carry heavy embroidery. We hear also of "baudekin," "nak," and cloth of ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford

... the Donohoes they left the regular track, and followed one of the fences for a mile or two, looking for a suitable place to try the horse. No good place offered itself, as the timber was thick, and the country so rugged that she would have had to ride at a stiff post-and-rail either up or down a steep slope. Loitering along, far off the track, they crossed a little ridge where stringybark trees, with an undergrowth of bushes and ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson

... tolerably plain, and little encumbered with underwood, except near the riverside. It is entirely covered with the same sort of trees as grow near Sydney; and in some places grass springs up luxuriantly; other places are quite bare of it. The soil is various; in many places a stiff, arid clay, covered with small pebbles; in other places, of a soft, loamy nature; but invariably in every part near the river it is a coarse, sterile sand. Our observations on it (particularly mine, from ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... consciousness he was aware of a gentle swaying motion of his body. He opened his eyes, and saw it was high noon, and that he was being carried in a litter through the valley. He felt stiff, and, looking down, perceived that his arm was tightly bandaged to ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte

... Indeed, the scarecrow young officer had not been a brilliant match. But now he saw at that salon a charming widow, Josephine de Beauharnais, whose husband had perished in the Terror. The ardour of his southern temperament, long repressed by his privations, speedily rekindles in her presence: his stiff, awkward manners thaw under her smiles: his silence vanishes when she praises his military gifts: he admires her tact, her sympathy, her beauty: he determines to marry her. The lady, on her part, seems to have been somewhat terrified by her uncanny wooer: ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... Aberdeen) did not think it his duty to comply; that he, and the government of which he was the head, would resist Mr. Roebuck's motion, which he considered a vote of censure upon the ministry. The premier's address was cold, stiff, haughty, and quietly defiant, but did not appear to make the least impression upon the peers, who were, like the rest of the public, burning with impatience to know the terms and result of Lord John's explanation in the commons. We did not remain in the house of peers, being more anxious, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... asking. She stood before him with her hands crossed within the folds of her ample sleeves. Her face was lost again in the encircling shadow of her cap and veil. She was erect and motionless in her stiff and heavy clothing. The momentary betrayal of womanhood and affection was passed, and this was the dreaded Sister Superior of the Convent ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman

... and there were generally a few streaks of paint of some sort or other upon his face, and of course his hands—especially round the fingernails—were grimed with it. But the worst of all were the dreadful hobnailed boots: the leather of the uppers of these was an eighth of an inch thick, and very stiff. Across the fore part of the boot this hard leather had warped into ridges and valleys, which chafed his feet, and made them bleed. The soles were five-eighths of an inch thick, covered with hobnails, and were as hard and inflexible and almost as heavy as iron. ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... O'Rourke's country, and returned to Tyrone driving before him 4,000 head of cattle. While proceeding at this rate he wrote soothing and flattering words to the Queen. It was for her majesty he was fighting; he was chastising her enemies and breaking stiff-necked chiefs into her yoke; and he begged that she would not credit any stories which his ill-willers might spread abroad against him. On the contrary he hoped she would determine his title and rule without ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... friend. The matter is one upon which my father keeps his own counsel, even from the Princess Userti. Perhaps it is because he will not change the policy of his father, Rameses; perhaps because he is stiff-necked to those who cross his will. Or it may be that he is held in this path by a madness sent of some god to bring loss and shame ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard

... sort of thing; that's the worst of it; and you'll never be let to sit down, and that's a bore. But you've strong legs. It would never do for me. I could never stand out a long tragedy in Drury Lane, with my neck in a stiff white choker, and my toes screwed into tight dress boots. I'd sooner be a porter myself, for he can go to bed when the ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... of Jane as "Pink and Blue." Sometimes I thought from her manner that she would a little rather I wouldn't come so often. I thought she didn't look up at me so pleasantly as she used to at first, and seemed a little stiff; but, as I had a majority in my favor, I continued my visits. I always had one good look at her when I said good-night; but it made the red come, so that I had to hurry out before she saw. It seemed to me that her cheeks then looked pinker than ever, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... fresh roots as it grows, which, when the tree is at its full age, may be found six or eight feet from the ground, to which the shoots gradually tend in regular succession; the leaf is very thick and stiff and about eight inches long and nine wide, the interval between the roots offer secure hiding places for those who are suddenly pursued. Another circumstance assists the pirate when pursued.—As the islands belong to several different nations, when pursued ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... moment outraged by the seditious and mutinous enrolment of the Nationalist Volunteers; in one month the devoted Commons read a third time the Home Rule Bill, the Welsh Church Disestablishment Bill and the Plural Voting Bill, and in the very same month the stiff-necked and abominable Lords for the third time threw out the Home Rule Bill, the Welsh Church Disestablishment Bill and the Plural Voting Bill. It was terrific. The newspapers could scarcely print it—or anything—terrifically ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson

... till deep in January, when the weather was engaged late one afternoon in keeping the promise of a January thaw in the form of the worst snow-storm of the winter. Then she came thumping with her umbrella-handle at his door as if, he divined, she were too stiff-handed or too package-laden to press the latch and let herself in, and she almost fell in, but saved herself by spilling on the floor some canvases and other things which she had been getting at the artist's-materials store near by. "Don't bother about them," she said, "but take ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells

... land where men are white all things are possible. So be it, white men; the girls will not go begging! Welcome again; and welcome, too, thou black one; if Gagool here had won her way, thou wouldst have been stiff and cold by now. It is lucky for thee that thou too camest from the Stars; ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard

... ale, and been stared at by an old crony, yet never recognized. A year of absence, danger, privation, slavery had put five years at least on to the young yeoman's back. The laughter had gone out of his eyes, the roundness out of his cheeks, and his walk was stiff. ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... o'clock in the morning she came downstairs, lighted lamp in hand, and alarm clock set to go off. As soon as the alarm-bell began to ring, the girl awoke, startled to see her mother standing there with the lighted lamp, herself cold and stiff with the discomfort of her position. "And that was the end ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James

... Marta who died." They argued and argued, but could not agree; so they finally decided to send one of the doctor's servants to see which one was dead. When Pedro saw the servant coming, he told his wife to lie flat and stiff in the bed as if she were dead; and when the servant entered, Pedro showed him his ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... wanted to make the Height-of-land portage for our camp. As it meant a long, stiff paddle against a strong current for most of the distance, we were up early, if not bright, and on our way before sunrise. This time, however, no rapids impeded us and we reached the portage on the farther shore of Height-of-land Lake, tired and ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... whatever happened in Thrums, he instantly made contemptible by citing something of the same kind, but on a larger scale, that had happened in London; he turned up his nose almost farther than was safe when they said Catlaw was a stiff mountain to climb. ("Oh, Gav, if you just saw the London mountains!") Snow! why they didn't know what snow was in Thrums. If they could only see St. Paul's or Hyde Park or Shovel! he couldn't help laughing at Thrums, he couldn't—Larfing, he said at first, ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie

... of the evening seemed a dream. The dark, crowded drawing-room flickered in the light from the crackling fire. Mrs. Craven, in her stiff chair, never moving her eyes, flung shadows on the walls. Some curtain blew drearily, with little secret taps, against the door. Rupert Craven sat moodily in ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole

... him but at that instant my ear caught a sound, distinct but not loud, that engrossed my whole attention. There was a faint "pop" as though someone had drawn a stiff cork from a narrow bottle-neck. The sound came from somewhere not far off. Why the sound seemed to me strange and peculiar I could not say, but at once ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... classification is introduced to show, that laws prescribing, or magistrates exercising, a very stiff and often inapplicable rule, or a blind and rash discretion, never can provide the just proportions between earning and salary on the one hand, and nutriment on the other: whereas interest, habit, and the tacit convention, that arise from a thousand nameless ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... It was over against the wall, in view of every one. It was a little wooden bench without a back, and it stood apart and solitary on a sort of dais. Tall men-at-arms in morion, breastplate, and steel gauntlets stood as stiff as their own halberds on each side of this dais, but no other creature was near by it. A pathetic little bench to me it was, for I knew whom it was for; and the sight of it carried my mind back to the great ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... "You see, it's just like this," he continued, hitching up his pants behind, and rolling, the same as sailors do on the stage. "About two months ago JEFF made a voyage with me. One night we were bowling along the canal under a very stiff breeze. The compass stood north-east and a half, the thermometer was chafing fearfully, and the jib-boom, only two-thirds reefed was lashing furiously against the poop-deck. Suddenly, that terrible cry, 'A man overboard!' I lost no time. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various

... look a bit stiff for a start-off," he admitted. "If Lafe prefers, he can go around and come down the ravine bed. I shall slide the line and be getting the outfit in shape ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet

... countermanded the demonstration, and there can be no doubt that many lives were saved and a new point gained in the possibility of governing Paris as a free city, yet one where order must be preserved, votes or no votes. Now this stiff attitude of M. Briand and the Conseil is freely attributed in intelligent quarters to Mr. Roosevelt. French people say it is a repercussion of his visit, of his Sorbonne lecture, and that going away he left in the minds of these people some of that ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt

... like a trooper for not being quicker at starting. The excitement of nearly being bumped by Brasenose in the first hundred yards was an excuse. However, Hardie apologised as they were dressing in the barge after the race; but the apology was so stiff, it did not pave the way ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... answering her as he had answered La Boulaye, "was my wife less a woman think you? Pah! There is yet another here who was wronged," he announced, and he waved his hand in the direction of La Boulaye, who stood, stiff and ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini

... and 1 level teaspoonful of salt; add shortening about the size of an egg, either lard or drippings. Divide the shortening into small bits and, using the tips of your fingers, rub it well into the dry flour just prepared; then gradually stir in cold water to make a soft dough, barely stiff enough to be rolled out 3/4 inch thick on bread-board, clean flat stone, or large, smooth piece of flattened bark. Whichever is used must be well floured, as must also the rolling-pin and biscuit cutter. A clean glass bottle or smooth round ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard

... cried at the first sight of them, and the Dandy explained that the boys had caught "shoals of 'em" at his dinner-camp at the Fish Hole, assuring us that the water there was "stiff with 'em." But the Dandy had been busy elsewhere. "Good enough!" Dan had said at the sight of the fish, and pointing to a billy full of clear, sweet water that was just thinking of boiling, the Maluka echoed the sentiment if not ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... hernia, often, at the navel. The extremities are short, bowed, cold, and livid, covered with rolls of the infiltrated skin, rolls which cannot be smoothed out. Hands and feet are broad, pudgy, and floppy, the fingers stiff, square and spade-like, the toes spread apart, like a duck's, by the solid skin. Above the collar bones there are frequently great pads of fat which sometimes encircle ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... without trouble. It is sometimes called the "health aura," or "physical aura." It is colorless, or rather about the shade of clear glass, diamond, or water. It is streaked with very minute, bristle-like lines. In a state of good health, these fine lines are stiff like toothbrush bristles; while, in cases of poor health, these lines droop, curl and present a furlike appearance. It is sometimes filled with minute sparkling particles, like tiny electric sparks ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi

... clearly visible. The notion of "bad taste" seems to have no place in German aesthetics. Their elegance has no grace in it; and they cannot understand the enormous difference there is between distinction (what is gentlemanly, ladylike), and their stiff vornehmlichkeit. Their imagination lacks style, training, education, and knowledge of the world; it has an ill-bred air even in its Sunday dress. The race is poetical and intelligent, but common and ill-mannered. Pliancy and gentleness, manners, wit, vivacity, taste, dignity, and charm, are ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... you know?" and Lorimer began to brush his stiff curly hair with a sort of vicious vigor. "How can you tell? I'm not a spiritualist, nor any sort of a humbug at all, I hope, but I sometimes indulge in presentiments. Before we started on this cruise, I was haunted by that dismal old ballad ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... here. The snow, which had seemed to her very deep at Montrose, lay piled up in huge drifts, not a fence nor a shrub to be seen. All around were spurs of the White Mountains, white, literally, as she looked up to them, from their base to their summit. There were great brown trees clinging stiff and frozen to their steep sides; sharp-pointed rocks, raising their great heads here and there from among ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins

... pilgrims were allowed to behold and touch the venerable grave. Two things strike the modern visitor: the variety of the fresco decorations of the house, which begin with pagan genii holding festoons, a tolerably good work of the third century, and end with stiff, uncanny representations of the Passion, of the ninth and tenth centuries; second, the fact that such an important monument should have been buried and forgotten, so that its discovery by Padre Germano took us by surprise. The upper church, the "beautiful ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani

... shirt on Sunday, in order that it might serve for Monday and Tuesday. 'Then you've two days each for the other two shirts in each week, you see. But socks and collars you change every day. In Sydney you must never wear a coloured shirt; always a stiff, ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... curving out into the sea, on the right, formed a bay and natural harbour, from which, towards the setting sun, many fishing-boats were diverging into the wide sea, as the children, stiff and weary, were getting out of the cart. Herbert's fatigue was soon forgotten in watching their brown-dyed sails, glowing almost red in the sunset, as they went out far into the dark, hunters of the deep, to spend the ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald

... dat I will always 'member dat walk, wid de bushes slappin' my laigs, de win' sighin' in de trees, an' de hoot owls an' whippoorwills hollerin' at each other frum de big trees. I wuz half asleep an' skeered stiff, but in a little while we pass de plum' thicket an' dar am de ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various

... devastated, and the whole population decimated periodically. Out of the ruins of the old Egypt, Psamatik had to raise up a new Egypt. He had to revivify the dead corpse, and put a fresh life into the stiff and motionless limbs. With great energy and determination he set himself to accomplish the task. Applying himself, first of all, to the restoration of what was decayed and ruined, he re-established the canals and the roads, encouraged agriculture, favoured the development of the population. The ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... I can only go to bed," sighed Aurelia, sinking on the couch as the old woman hobbled off. Lassitude and exhaustion had brought her to a state like annihilation—unable to think or guess, hope or fear, with shoes hurting her footsore feet, a stiff dress cramping her too much for sleep, and her weary aching eyes gathering a few impressions in a passive way. On the walls hung dimly seen portraits strangely familiar to her. The man in a green dressing ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... what becomes of the soil? It begins a new life. The roots of the plants take it up; the salts which they find in it—the staple, as we call them—go to make leaves and seed; the very sand has its use, it feeds the stalks of corn and grass, and makes them stiff. The corn-stalks would never stand upright if they could not get sand from the soil. So what a thousand years ago made part of a mountain, now makes part of a wheat-plant; and in a year more the wheat grain ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... near through hill and dale. Very different from these notes is the screech of the barn owl. But Sir William Jardine informs us that this owl hoots; and that he has shot it in the act of hooting. This is stiff authority; and I believe it because it comes from the pen of Sir William Jardine. Still, however, methinks that it ought to be taken in a somewhat diluted state; we know full well that most extraordinary examples of splendid talent do, from time to time, make their appearance on the world's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 530, January 21, 1832 • Various

... enmity which would follow me through every retreat, was such as to bereave me of all consistent thinking, much more of the power of coming to any resolution. As soon as this giddiness and horror of the mind subsided, and the deadly calm that invaded my faculties was no more, one stiff and master gale gained the ascendancy, and drove me to an instant desertion of this late cherished retreat. I had no patience to enter into further remonstrance and explanation with the inhabitants of my ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... a helmeted sentry Silent and motionless, watching while two sleep, And he sees before him With indifferent eyes the blasted and torn land Peopled with stiff prone forms, stupidly rigid, As tho' ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke

... greet you, and there seems to be no maimed, or sick, or poor. From the simple fact that you are on the river, there is a brotherhood with every sailor. The mode is supple as the water, not like the stiff fashion of the land. Ships and shipmen soon become the "people." The other folks on shore are, to be sure, pretty numerous, but then they are ashore. Undoubtedly they are useful to provide for us who are afloat the butter, eggs, ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor

... differed widely from the typical first lieutenant of fiction, a being as stiff as a ramrod, and as dangerous to approach as a polar bear. He was, indeed, a bright, cheery fellow, and although he was obliged to surround himself with a certain amount of official stiffness, he was a great favorite ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty

... My foot was just a little stiff, but I was hurrying as fast as I could, when up sprang the cover of the basket, and out popped the kitty. Of course, I wasn't going without Silvertoes. She scampered round the end of the depot, and I ran after her. It was of no use; she dropped into a hole. I couldn't have been gone half ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May

... Stiff-legged, the beast advanced, a guttural growl sounding deep in its throat. To Ross the animal, larger than any dog he had even seen and twice as vicious, was a monster. He had the blanket ready before he realized that the wolf was not watching ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton

... of December we sailed on our return to Cork; mustering in all seventeen persons, including one male and one female passenger. With a fine stiff breeze down the bay, we soon lost sight of land, and nothing of note occurred till the 30th, when the wind got up from the north-west, and soon blew so heavy a gale, that we were obliged to take in every thing but a close-reefed ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park

... white. His throat and under side of his neck are white, crossed by two bands of brown. His hoofs, horns and eyes are black, and there is a black spot under each ear. Near the end of his nose he is also black, and down the back of his neck is a black line of stiff longer hairs. A large white patch surrounds his short tail. Who remembers what I told you about Antelope Jack, the big Jack ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess

... placed in a hammock, while the officers took charge of little Charley, who was soon at home among them. A rough-looking fellow brought Dick a mess of some sort in basin, and a horn cup filled with stiff grog. A sailor seldom refuses a glass of grog, and although water was what he then wanted, he drank the spirit off, and ate some of the food. The effect of the grog was to send him into a sound sleep, from which he did not awake till the next ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston

... inferior, the king distributed them amongst his divisions (by placing them in the van, centre, and rear of the ranks). And furnished with timber and planks for repairing the damages their cars might sustain in the press of battle, with large quivers borne on cars, with tiger-skins and other stiff leather for enveloping the sides of cars, with barbed javelins to be hurled by the hand, with quivers borne on the backs of steeds and elephants, with long-handled spears of iron and missiles, with quivers borne on the backs of foot-soldiers with heavy clubs of woods, with flagstaffs and banners, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... back in their seats after Wonota had replied to the applause with a stiff little bow from the entrance to the dressing-tent. The usual representation of "Pioneer Days" was then put on, and while the "stage" was being set for the attack on the emigrant train and Indian massacre, the fellow who had stood ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson

... be done the same, Lord God, On earth as in thy high abode! In pain give patience for relief, Obedience in love and grief; All flesh and blood keep off and check That 'gainst thy will makes a stiff neck. ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald

... you can see the shapes of the trunks and branches, down to the little twigs. You can tell the name of the tree from its skeleton, for each has its own form—the sturdy oak, the stiff poplar, the drooping willow, and the elegant silver birch. You should see them after a fall of snow. Each tree bears the weight of snow after a different ...
— Woodside - or, Look, Listen, and Learn. • Caroline Hadley

... converted into a ponderous Largo; not the hundredth part of the weight of a single quaver was spared us; stiff and ghastly, like a bronze pigtail, the battuta of this Andante was swung over our heads; even the feathers on the angel's wings were turned into corkscrew curls— rigid, like those of the seven year's war. Already, I felt myself placed ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)

... too fine. Add to these one clove of garlic mashed, one medium-sized onion chopped fine, add bread crumbs sufficient to stiffen the mass, chopped parsley, celery and herbs to taste. Beat two eggs separately and add to the clams. If too stiff to drop from a spoon add the strained liquor of clams. Drop tablespoonfuls of this mixture into hot fat, turn and cook for sufficient time to cook through, then drain on ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords

... than two hours the old man was at the door of the mansion; it was then about three o'clock in the afternoon, and being in the month of November, there was not so much as two hours of daylight remaining. "I shall have a difficult job with the stiff old lady," thought Jacob, as be rung the bell; "I don't believe that she would rise out of her high chair for old Noll and his whole army at his ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat

... revisit the scene of the last evening's gambol, and if he met with any of the party, to demand his dog and gun. As he rose to walk, he found himself stiff in the joints, and wanting in his usual activity. "These mountain beds do not agree with me," thought Rip, "and if this frolic, should lay me up with a fit of the rheumatism, I shall have a blessed time with Dame Van Winkle." With some difficulty he got down into the glen: he found ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... a traveller lost in the snow, who begins to get stiff and to sink down while the snowflakes cover him. In fact, I am gradually losing interest in politics, but the feeling, like that of the traveller sinking under the snow, is a pleasant one."—Prince Bismarck to the Deputation ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 6, 1892 • Various

... square bottle of spirits, while Howland poured water from a kettle over the fire into a pewter flagon, and produced a sugar bason from a chest in the corner of the room. These, with a smaller pewter cup, he placed before the seaman who eagerly mixed himself a stiff dram, drank it, and prepared another, which he sipped luxuriously, as leaning back in his chair he looked slowly around the circle of his ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... advocates of Christianity did not seem to believe in it themselves. Was not this too much for human patience? Would not one suppose that the benign visitants from Europe, provoked at their incredulity and discouraged by their stiff-necked obstinacy, would for ever have abandoned their shores, and consigned them to their original ignorance and misery? But no: so zealous were they to effect the temporal comfort and eternal salvation of these pagan infidels that they even proceeded from the milder means ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... well marked for him, and he had traveled it as best he knew how. As Peter said, there were no side paths. Just a narrow road, and the obstructions and perils on the way were set there for each to face. Well, he would face this last one with a "stiff upper-lip." ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum

... a little knoll in his pasture, caught sight of the strange, dark figure of the running moose. A spark leapt into his heavy eyes. He wheeled, pawed the sod, put his muzzle to the ground, and bellowed a sonorous challenge. The moose stopped short and stared about him, the stiff hair lifting angrily along the ridge of his massive neck. Last Bull lowered his head and tore up ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts

... his attention, first by the size of the stakes and then by the men gathered there. It was a stiff game, opening bets sometimes being as much as fifty dollars. ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens

... life are to obtain permit of absence from billets, and the struggle against the natural impulse to overstay the limit of leave. There are times when soldiers experience an intense longing to see their own homes, firesides, and friends, and in moments like these it takes a stiff fight to overcome the desire to go away, if only for a little while, to their native haunts. Only once in five weeks may a man obtain a week-end pass—if he is lucky. To the soldier, luck is merely ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill

... "Keep a stiff upper lip," said Dick. "By the time you get to be a gray-headed veteran, you may get a chance to run errands for some big firm on the Bowery, which is a ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger

... named 'Stiff-ears,' the brother of King Tawny-hide, came to visit him. The King received him with all imaginable respect, bade him be seated, and rose from his throne to go and kill some beasts ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... country gentleman as fast as you can, and even if the Mackhais are a little stiff and distant with you, do not resent it or take any notice of the ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn

... away; so that he must now trudge back afoot to report to his masters. He had made a mess of his errands and nearly lost his life besides. The bullet from Oscar's revolver had cut a neat furrow in his scalp, which was growing sore and stiff as it ceased bleeding. He would undoubtedly be dealt with harshly by Chauvenet and Durand, but he knew that the sooner he reported his calamities the better; so he stumbled toward Lamar, pausing at times to clasp his small head in his great ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson

... explain when a halloo from the stables cut him short. "There's Frank now. I ought to be out helping him this minute; we've got a good stiff drive ahead of us. You ask Gertie about it, she'll explain ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett

... often produces serious deformities of the bones of the trunk, and makes the chest so small that the lungs have not room to act properly. Tight or high-heeled shoes also often deform and injure the feet and make the gait stiff and awkward. ...
— First Book in Physiology and Hygiene • J.H. Kellogg

... the Middle Ages, and, forgetting their crimes and miseries, threw around them a halo of illusive romance. It was not only in poetry that this reaction was visible—in art and architecture the same tendency appeared. The stiff and quaint but vigorous productions of the old German painters were drawn forth from the obscurity where they had long mouldered; the glorious old cathedrals were repaired and embellished; the lays of the minnesingers, collected by Tieck, were on every lip, and the records of the olden times were ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... received them, and in answer to their eager inquiries, said that the Angel was in no way seriously injured, only so bruised and shaken that their doctor had ordered her to lie quietly for the day. Though she was sore and stiff, they were having work to keep her in bed. Her callers sent up their flowers with their grateful regards, and the Angel promptly returned word that ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter

... stooping position, and where instead of a floor there would be a thin flight of stairs like a Russian bath, and the kitchen would always be under the house with a vaulted ceiling and a brick floor. The front of his houses always had a hard, stubborn expression, with stiff, French lines, low, squat roofs, and fat, pudding-like chimneys surmounted with black cowls and squeaking weathercocks. And somehow all the houses built by my father were like each other, and vaguely reminded me of a top hat, and the stiff, obstinate back of his head. In the course of time the people ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff

... that M. de Cymier should have asked for the part of the husband, a local magistrate, stiff and self-important, whom everybody laughed at. Jacqueline alone knew why he had chosen it: it would give him the opportunity of giving her two kisses. Of course those kisses were to be reserved for the representation, but whether intentionally or otherwise, the young husband ventured ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon

... the manner of their fathers. There are also three Roman Catholic clergymen, including a bishop;—good, exemplary men, whose "constant care" is not "to increase their store," but to guide and direct their flocks in the paths of piety and virtue. But, alas! they have a stiff-necked people to deal with;—the French half-breed, who follows the hunter's life, possesses all the worst vices of his European and Indian progenitors, and is indifferent alike to the laws of God and man. There are, in all, seven places of worship, three ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean

... house. The windows were all withered away behind stiff curtains, and the light that labored between these was chastened to the last degree of respectability. The doors skulked behind heavy plush hangings. The floors hid themselves decently under thick red and black carpets, and the margins which were uncarpeted ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens

... unless the Souths put forward a more gentlemanly fellow to speak for them," remarked Hi with stiff dignity. ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock

... fish if he could, and who will pleasure himself by flicking off his flies, and dreaming of impossible trout, and smoking among the sedges Hope's enchanted cigarettes. Next time we shall be more skilled, more fortunate. Next time! "To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow." Grey hairs come, and stiff limbs, and shortened sight; but the spring is green and hope is fresh for all the changes in the world and in ourselves. We can tell a hawk from a hand-saw, a March Brown from a Blue Dun; and if our success ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang

... as if she had swallowed a poker, and gave Mary-Louisa a hand which was as stiff as a batting staff. She examined the bed-room furniture, but refused to drink coffee, and never once looked her sister-in-law in the face. But she showed a faint, though genuine, interest in the baby. Then she went ...
— Married • August Strindberg

... grew so strong that no individual could bear to think of resigning this pleasing anxious being and proceeding to fall into dumb forgetfulness. Men saw their comrades stricken by some dark force that they could not understand. The strong limbs grew lax first, and then hopelessly stiff; the bright eye was dulled; and it soon became necessary to hide the inanimate thing under the soil. It was impossible for those who had the quick blood flowing in their veins to believe that a time would come when ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... hay 'Neath the feet of the kine Is to man for a sign; At the striking of ten he was grey, And they carried him out Stiff-strangled with gout. (Man, it is said, ...
— Eyes of Youth - A Book of Verse by Padraic Colum, Shane Leslie, A.O. • Various

... for this bread in the same manner as that for the Aelkaandt except that the corn is baked instead of parched. The yeast is then mixed with meal into a stiff dough and baked in corn husks, four pats are ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various

... made a veritable ladder down to the little garden; and, firmly secured to this, on a level with the window-sill and within easy reach therefrom, was the dovecote in question. He put in his hand, and slowly drew out four stiff, cold, feathered little bodies, and laid them on the dressing-table before her; then, while she was grieving over them, he groped round in all corners of the cote and drew forth ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew

... section of the hair of a Chinaman or an American Indian is found to be circular, that of a European oval in shape. As a rule, the flatter the hair the more readily it curls, the perfectly cylindrical hair hanging down stiff and straight. A section of the straight hair of a Japanese, for instance, forms a perfect circle. So much importance being attached to the structure of the hair, I made a collection from different individuals. They were willing enough to let me have all the samples I wanted ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... with his poodle at his heels, but not by the way he came. He went out of his way, which was odd; but then the Doctor was "a little odd," and moreover this was always the end of his evening walk. Through the church-yard, where spreading cedars and stiff yews rose from the velvet grass, and where among tombstones and crosses of various devices lay one of older and uglier date, by which he stayed. It was framed by a border of the most brilliant flowers, and it would seem as if the Doctor must ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... medicine glass. One two-quart fountain syringe. One covered enamel bucket or slop jar. One good sized douche pan. Three agateware bowls, holding two quarts each. Two agateware pitchers, holding two quarts each. Two stiff hand-brushes. One nail file. One pair surgeon's rubber gloves. One and one-half yards rubber sheeting 36 inches wide. Two No. 2 rubber catheters. Two dozen large safety pins. Small package of tooth picks, to be used as applicators. Six breast ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... A line in a stiff, uncompromising hand apprises the professor of the unwelcome fact. The "line" is signed by "Jane Majendie," therefore there can be no doubt of the genuineness of the news contained in it. Yes! ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford

... She felt that he was in great pain, both of body and mind. His fall had hurt him. She knew that by the way he moved his right arm. The unaccustomed exercise had made him stiff. Probably the physical discomfort he was silently enduring had acted as an irritant to the mind. She remembered that it was caused by his determination to be her companion, and the ice in her melted away. She longed to make him calmer, happier. ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... brought to the gray of the hills; In the shuddering forests' held breath; in the sudden wind-thrills; In the startled wild beasts that bore off, each with eye sidling still Though averted with wonder and dread; in the birds stiff and chill That rose heavily, as I approached them, made stupid with awe: E'en the serpent that slid away silent,—he felt the new law. The same stared in the white humid faces upturned by the flowers; The same worked in the heart of the cedar and moved the vine bowers: And the little brooks witnessing ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons

... cry'd, "Ah! spare me one," the vocal hills reply'd: In vain she begs, the Fates her suit deny, In her embrace she sees her daughter die. * "The queen of all her family bereft, "Without or husband, son, or daughter left, "Grew stupid at the shock. The passing air "Made no impression on her stiff'ning hair. ...
— Religious and Moral Poems • Phillis Wheatley

... or violet. These vessels are mostly small and somewhat compressed in form; they are surrounded with parallel stripes of pictures of animals, plants, fabulous beings, or arabesques. The drawings show an antiquated stiff type, similar to those on the vessels recently discovered at Nineveh and Babylon, whence the influence of Oriental on Greek art may be inferred. This archaic style, like the strictly hieratic style in sculpture, was retained together with a ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... that I partly took to be my father was a-backin' furder and furder from us, and at last he got clean agin the jamb o' the chimney, and then he looked up wild, as if he was a looking at the sky, and directly he spoke. 'This'll be a stiff blow,' says he. 'We're struck aft, and we'll be in the trough of the sea in a minute! God help us all!' And with that he began to climb up the shelves o' the cupboard, as though he was a climbin' ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... in arabesques by Poccetti. Ranged on both sides are valuable specimens of ancient statuary, and of Roman busts of emperors and members of the imperial family, Augusti et August. On the walls is hung a valuable and interesting series of pictures, beginning with the stiff gilded Byzantine style of the infancy of the art, as No. 1, aMadonna by Andrea Rico di Candia (1102), and advancing gradually by No. 2, St. Cecilia, by Cimabue, 130 years later. Amarked improvement in colour and grouping is seen in No. 6, Christ in Gethsemane, by Giotto, ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... china and the glass upon the beautiful cloth, and when all was prepared the butler said in his even, "servant" tones, "Dinner is served," and went behind the chair reserved for the mistress of the house. Drusilla hesitated a moment, in evident awe of the butler, who stood so erect and stiff in his evening clothes, but here again kindly Daphne Thornton came to ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper

... was up first. He leaned over and set his big hand, fingers outspread like stiff prongs, upon the man's head, and twisted the caput to and fro; then he drove the operative down with a thump in his chair. "This is what I've got to say! Remember that she is a lady, and treat her accordingly, or I'll twist off your head and take it downstreet and sell it ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day

... wrote his mistress from time to time, throve, and when he grew better, would play by himself grisly games of spying, walking up, hailing, and chasing another dog. From these he would break off of a sudden and return to his normal stiff gait, with the air of one who had forgotten some matter of life and death, which could be reached only by staring at me. I left him one evening posturing with the unseen on the lawn, and went inside to finish some letters for the post. I must have been at work nearly an hour, for I was going ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling

... Another watered creek was crossed at about 9 miles from the start, and the camp pitched at a round waterhole, in a well-watered creek at 14 miles. Many gullies were crossed filled with the screw-palm ('Pandanus Spirilas.') The soil of the box flats was a stiff yellow clay. Hot winds had been prevalent for the last week from the south-east, which parched and baked everything and made the mosquitoes very numerous and annoying. (Camp XL.) Latitude 15 ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine

... his back to the wall for shelter, and though he stood thus out of the wind, the air drenched him with its chill like water. He smiled slowly with stiff lips at the brisk outdoor pink in ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... that it introduced a chorus like that of the old Greek drama. Ferrex and Porrex are the sons of King Gorboduc: the former is killed by the latter, who in turn is slain by his own mother. Of Gorboduc, Lamb says, "The style of this old play is stiff and cumbersome, like the dresses of the times. There may be flesh and blood underneath, but we cannot ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... a letter of formal shape. Capitals were originally derived from the stiff and angular letters used in formal inscriptions. Originally all writing was done in capitals. Later the scribes devised less formal shapes for the letters, making use of lines more easily made by brush or pen on papyrus, ...
— Capitals - A Primer of Information about Capitalization with some - Practical Typographic Hints as to the Use of Capitals • Frederick W. Hamilton

... his master, having the look of an arrested needle in mechanism. His lean slip of face was an illumination of vivacious grey from the quickest of prominent large eyes. He placed his master's letters legibly on the table, and fell to his posture of attention, alert on stiff legs, the hands like sucking-cubs at play ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... always been accustomed to a loose and easy attire, suitable for mountain work; and the high cravats and stiff collars, powdered heads and pigtails, and tight-fitting garments, seemed to him the acme of discomfort. It was not long, however, before he came upon a group of officers, and saw that the military etiquette was no less strict, in their case, ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty

... Ay, most likely 'tis in Spain That we and Waring meet again Now, while he turns down that cool narrow lane Into the blackness, out of grave Madrid All fire and shine, abrupt as when there's slid Its stiff gold blazing pall From some black coffin-lid. Or, best of all, I love to think The leaving us was just a feint; Back here to London did he slink, And now works on without a wink Of sleep, and we are on the brink Of something great in ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke

... Bob said; "but not enough to matter. I can't start training, and I'll be too stiff to do ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill

... sister," said Alan, very stiff and quiet and suddenly very like his father. "Whatever she has done you are not to touch her. She has ruined my chance of sailing with the Huntress, but at least she has shown me what—what you are, ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs

... stood out in thick mats. The hair-dresser had a small oil stove on which lay heating half a dozen iron combs. With a hot comb she teased each strand of wool into perfect straightness and then plastered it down with a greasy pomade. The result was a stiff effect, something like the hair of the Japanese. It required about three hours to straighten the hair of one negress. The price was a dollar and ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... side. It is entirely covered with the same sorts of trees as grow near Sydney; and in some places grass springs up luxuriantly; other places are quite bare of it. The soil is various: in many parts a stiff and clay, covered with small pebbles; in other places, of a soft loamy nature: but invariably, in every part near the river, it is a coarse sterile sand. Our observations on it (particularly mine, from carrying the compass by which we steered) were not so numerous as might ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench

... examples of Egyptian sculpture consist of bas-reliefs and figures in the round, carved from limestone and granite or cast in bronze. Many of the statues appear to our eyes very stiff and ungraceful. The sculptor never learned how to pose his figures easily or how to arrange them in an artistic group. In spite of these defects some Egyptian statues are wonderfully ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... he worked fast, to defend himself, untie the meat, mount his horse and escape. But the thongs were stiff with the cold. He, too, was stiff, and his fingers grew numb. He sprang behind a tree, his rifle ready, but ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... men were fighting. Thus they fought for nigh a half an hour, until the ground was all plowed up with the digging of their heels, and their breathing grew labored like the ox in the furrow. But Little John suffered the most, for he had become unused to such stiff labor, and his joints were not as supple as they had been before he went to ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle

... easily be approached by boats, and where her carronades might be rendered exceedingly useful. Much of the ballast was again on board the lugger, and a few of her stores, sufficient to render her tolerably stiff, in the event of a breeze springing up; and Raoul had directed the two inside guns of the felucca to be sent on board her and mounted, that she might assist in the defence with a flanking fire. The great difficulty which exists in managing a force at anchor is the opportunity that is given ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... tree he scrambled, not without some difficulty, for the branches were close together and stiff, and Ned tore his coat in the effort. But he finally got a position where, to his surprise, he could look down into the very enclosure from which Tom was so particular to ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton

... those walls, and an old wooden bullock plough and a couple of yokes were dry-rotting across the back doorway. The remains of a straw-stack, some hay under a bark humpy, a small iron plough, and an old stiff coffin-headed grey draught horse, were all that I saw ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson

... while before Wolfert came to himself. When he opened his eyes, the ruddy streaks of morning were already shooting up the sky. He found himself grievously battered, and lying in the bottom of a boat. He attempted to sit up, but was too sore and stiff to move. A voice requested him in a friendly accents to lie still. He turned his eyes toward the speaker; it was Dirk Waldron. He had dogged the party, at the earnest request of Dame Webber and her daughter, who, with the laudable curiosity ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... mistake is to live and act with modesty, so that as yet people only say that he has "immense talent." No painter or engraver of repute—and he is both—has served a more conscientious apprenticeship, or sets greater store on thoroughness in his art. His drawing is correct beyond reproach—a little stiff, like the early painters. You can guess from his works his partiality for the old masters—Perugino, Fra Angelico, Botticelli, Memling, Holbein—who, though not the masters in fashion, will always be masters in vigor of outline, directness, in simple grace, and genuine feeling. He has copied ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin

... words could have spoken more plainly than that disheveled figure looking out with haggard eyes upon the assembled family. Before that living picture of Remorse the rest were dumb. It was easy to see that the Marquise's feet were stretched out stark and stiff with the agony of death; and Moina, leaning against the door-frame, looking into their faces, spoke in a ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac

... little notice as she would of a bee wandering in at a window on a summer's day, used at first to watch her with a kind of frightened curiosity. She was so old and so much a part of the place, it was difficult to think of her exactly as a living thing. Old Shep, the white-nozzled, stiff-limbed collie, waiting for his time to die, seemed almost more human than the withered, dried-up old woman. He had been a riotous, roystering puppy, mad with the joy of life, when she was already a tottering, hobbling dame; now he was just a blind, breathing carcase, nothing ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... camels, but he can never do the slightest harm to even a new-born kid. The goats of the flocks dance in front of him at night, deriding him to his face, and always from that moment his right leg has been stiff and lame." ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... his eyelids, stiff with blood,— But, oh, my brother, I had changed with thee For I am still tormented in the flood, Whilst thou hast done thy ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope

... spirituality which never interferes with their worldliness is so satisfyingly human. Piety renders them increasingly graceful in manners and appearance. In Heaven I believe Episcopalian saints will be distinguished from all others by stiff ruffs worn ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris



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