different between upright vs stiff

English

Etymology

From Middle English upright, uppryght, upriht, from Old English upriht (“upright; erect”), from Proto-Germanic *upprehtaz, equivalent to up- +? right. Cognate with Saterland Frisian apgjucht (“upright”), West Frisian oprjocht (“upright”), Dutch oprecht (“upright”), German Low German uprecht (“upright”), German aufrecht (“upright”), Swedish upprätt (“upright”), Icelandic upprétt (“upright”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??p?a?t/

Adjective

upright (comparative more upright, superlative most upright)

1. Vertical; erect.

   I was standing upright, waiting for my orders.

   • 1608, William Shakespeare, The merry Deuill of Edmonton, introduction, lines 1–4

     Fab[ell]:?What meanes the tolling of this fatall chime, // O what a trembling horror ?trikes my hart! // My ?tiffned haire ?tands vpright on my head, // As doe the bri?tles of a porcupine.

   • 1782, Fanny Burney, Cecilia; or, Memoirs of an Heiress, volume V, Book X, chapter X: “A Termination”, page 372

     Supported by pillows, ?he ?at almo?t upright.
2. Greater in height than breadth.
3. (figuratively) Of good morals; practicing ethical values.
   • 1611, King James Version, Job 1:1:

     There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.

4. (of a golf club) Having the head approximately at a right angle with the shaft.

Synonyms

• (vertical, erect): surrect (obsolete, rare)

Derived terms

• upright bass, upright bassist

Translations

Adverb

upright (comparative more upright, superlative most upright)

1. in or into an upright position

Translations

Noun

upright (plural uprights)

1. Any vertical part of a structure, especially one of the goal posts in sports.
2. A word clued by the successive initial, middle, or final letters of the cross-lights in a double acrostic or triple acrostic.
3. (informal) An upright piano.
4. (informal) An upright arcade game cabinet.
   • 2013, Jon Peddie, The History of Visual Magic in Computers (page 181)

     The video arcade machines are typically in stand up arcade cabinets, although some have been built as tables. The uprights have a monitor and controls in front and players insert coins or tokens into the machines to play the game.

5. Short for upright vacuum cleaner.

Holonyms

• (word clued by successive letters): double acrostic, triple acrostic

Related terms

• upright piano

Translations

Verb

upright (third-person singular simple present uprights, present participle uprighting, simple past and past participle uprighted)

1. (transitive) To set upright or stand back up (something that has fallen).

English

Etymology

From Middle English stiff, stiffe, stif, from Old English st?f, from Proto-Germanic *st?faz (compare West Frisian stiif,Dutch stijf, Norwegian Bokmål stiv, German steif), from Proto-Indo-European *steypós (compare Latin st?pes, st?p?, from which English stevedore).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /st?f/
• Rhymes: -?f

Adjective

stiff (comparative stiffer, superlative stiffest)

1. (of an object) Rigid; hard to bend; inflexible.

   • “A tight little craft,” was Austin’s invariable comment on the matron; […]. ¶ Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable, and from time to time squinting sideways, as usual, in the ever-renewed expectation that he might catch a glimpse of his stiff, retroussé moustache.

2. (figuratively, of policies and rules and their application and enforcement) Inflexible; rigid.
3. (of a person) Formal in behavior; unrelaxed.
4. (colloquial) Harsh, severe.
5. (of muscles or parts of the body) Painful as a result of excessive or unaccustomed exercise.

6. Potent.

7. Dead, deceased.
8. (of a penis) Erect.
9. (cooking, of whipping cream or egg whites) Beaten until so aerated that they stand up straight on their own.

   beat the egg whites until they are stiff

10. (mathematics) Of an equation: for which certain numerical solving methods are numerically unstable, unless the step size is taken to be extremely small.
11. (nautical) Keeping upright.

Quotations

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:stiff.

Derived terms

• bored stiff, scared stiff
• stiff-lipped, stiff upper lip
• stiffy

Translations

Noun

stiff (countable and uncountable, plural stiffs)

1. (slang) An average person, usually male, of no particular distinction, skill, or education, often a working stiff or lucky stiff.

   A Working Stiff's Manifesto: A Memoir of Thirty Jobs I Quit, Nine That Fired Me, and Three I Can't Remember was published in 2003.

2. (slang) A person who is deceived, as a mark or pigeon in a swindle.

   She convinced the stiff to go to her hotel room, where her henchman was waiting to rob him.

3. (slang) A cadaver; a dead person.
4. (slang) A flop; a commercial failure.
   • 1994, Andy Dougan, The actors' director: Richard Attenborough behind the camera (page 63)

     If the movie was a stiff it wasn't any of their specific faults. They were all in it together and they were jobbed in and jobbed out for two weeks and gone and they got a pile of money for their efforts.

   • 2016, Ralph J. Gleason, Toby Gleason, Music in the Air: The Selected Writings of Ralph J. Gleason

     They never did sell any records. I don't mean they didn't sell 100,000. I mean they didn't sell 5000. Total. National. Coast-to-coast. The record was a stiff.

5. (US, slang) A person who leaves (especially a restaurant) without paying the bill.
6. (US, slang, by extension) A customer who does not leave a tip.
7. (blackjack) Any hard hand where it is possible to exceed 21 by drawing an additional card.
8. (finance, slang) Negotiable instruments, possibly forged.
9. (prison slang) A note or letter surreptitiously sent by an inmate.

References

• (prison slang: a note or letter): 2015, Eric Partridge, A Dictionary of the Underworld: British and American (page 688); 2015, Noel 'Razor' Smith, The Criminal Alphabet: An A-Z of Prison Slang

See also

• bindlestiff
• See also Thesaurus:corpse, Thesaurus:body

Translations

Derived terms

• do a bit of stiff
• working stiff

Verb

stiff (third-person singular simple present stiffs, present participle stiffing, simple past and past participle stiffed)

1. To fail to pay that which one owes (implicitly or explicitly) to another, especially by departing hastily.

   Realizing he had forgotten his wallet, he stiffed the taxi driver when the cab stopped for a red light.

   • 1946, William Foote Whyte, Industry and Society, page 129

     We asked one girl to explain how she felt when she was "stiffed." She said, You think of all the work you've done and how you've tried to please [them…].

2. to cheat someone
   • 1992, Stephen Birmingham, Shades of Fortune, page 451

     You see, poor Nonie really was stiffed by Adolph in his will. He really stiffed her, Rose, and I really wanted to right that wrong.

3. to tip ungenerously
   • 2007, Mary Higgins Clark, I Heard That Song Before, page 154

     Then he stiffed the waiter with a cheap tip.

Translations

Anagrams

• TIFFs, tiffs

Middle English

Adjective

stiff

1. Alternative form of stif

Adverb

stiff

1. Alternative form of stif