She felt him stiffen in surprise when he heard the news.
Source: tatoeba (1343816)
Stiffen
//ˈstɪfən//
Synonyms for "stiffen" (67 found)
Ranked by relevance and common usage.
Closest matches (14)
Strong matches (20)
Related words (33)
Related word relations
OpenGloss and ConceptNet supply richer edges like generalizations, collocations, and derivations.
Translations
65 translations across 28 languages.
Arabic
1 entries- جَمَدَ verb (to become stiff)
Bulgarian
3 entries- вкочанясвам се verb (to become stiff)
- втвърдявам verb (to make stiff)
- втвърдявам се verb (to become stiff)
Chinese Mandarin
2 entries- 使僵硬 verb (to make stiff)
- 变硬 verb (to become stiff)
Czech
2 entries- ztuhnout verb (to become stiff)
- ztvrdnout verb (to become stiff)
Danish
1 entries- stivne verb (to become stiff)
Finnish
4 entries- jähmettyä verb (to become stiff)
- jähmettää verb (to make stiff)
- jäykistyä verb (to become stiff)
- jäykistää verb (to make stiff)
French
4 entries- endurcir verb (to make stiff)
- raidir verb (to make stiff)
- s'endurcir verb (to become stiff)
- se raidir verb (to become stiff)
German
4 entries- aufdoppeln verb (to make stiff)
- aussteifen verb (to make stiff)
- ertüchtigen verb (to make stiff)
- versteifen verb (to make stiff)
Gothic
1 entries- 𐌲𐌰𐍃𐍄𐌰𐌿𐍂𐌺𐌽𐌰𐌽 verb (to become stiff)
Hungarian
1 entries- merevedik verb (to become stiff)
Icelandic
1 entries- stífna verb (to become stiff)
Ido
1 entries- rigidigar verb (to make stiff)
Ingrian
1 entries- kangeta verb (to become stiff)
Irish
2 entries- stalc verb (to make stiff)
- stalc verb (to become stiff)
Italian
4 entries- indurirsi verb (to become stiff)
- irrigidire verb (to make stiff)
- irrigidirsi verb (to become stiff)
- solidificarsi verb (to become stiff)
Latin
1 entries- rigēscō verb (to become stiff)
Māori
2 entries- whakamakiki verb (to make stiff)
- whakawhena verb (to make stiff)
Northern Mansi
1 entries- а̄гмалтаӈкве verb (to become stiff)
Norwegian
2 entries- stivne verb (to make stiff)
- stivne verb (to become stiff)
Polish
2 entries- zastawać verb (to make stiff)
- zastać verb (to become stiff)
Portuguese
2 entries- endurecer verb (to make stiff)
- endurecer verb (to become stiff)
Romanian
2 entries- întări verb (to make stiff)
- întări verb (to become stiff)
Sicilian
2 entries- aggigghiari verb (to make stiff)
- attrunzari verb (to make stiff)
Slovak
2 entries- stuhnúť verb (to become stiff)
- stvrdnúť verb (to become stiff)
Spanish
4 entries- atiesar verb (to make stiff)
- atiesarse verb (to become stiff)
- endurecer verb (to make stiff)
- endurecerse verb (to become stiff)
Swedish
4 entries- bli stel verb (to become stiff)
- bli styv verb (to become stiff)
- stelna verb (to become stiff)
- styvna verb (to become stiff)
Tamil
1 entries- மர verb (to become stiff)
Volapük
2 entries- stifikön verb (to become stiff)
- stifükön verb (to make stiff)
Sample sentences
8 total sentences available.
Mennad's body started to stiffen.
Source: tatoeba (8052355)
Dad used spray starch to stiffen his dress shirts.
Source: tatoeba (9518668)
The researcher says other factors besides age may affect the rate at which veins stiffen.
Source: tatoeba (12090711)
Showing 4 of 8 available sentences.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.