The quality of being rigid, inflexible, or resistant to bending or movement. Can refer to physical rigidity or figurative inflexibility in behavior or attitude.
From Old English stif meaning 'rigid, hard to bend' plus the suffix '-ness' indicating a state or quality. The root is related to Old Norse stifr and has Germanic origins, maintaining consistent meaning across centuries of use.
Stiffness perfectly demonstrates how our language treats physical and social rigidity as fundamentally similar phenomena - we use the same word for arthritic joints and formal personalities. This linguistic overlap suggests something deep about how humans perceive inflexibility as unnatural, whether in bodies or social interactions.
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