RIGID

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does rigid mean? 

• RIGID (adjective)
  The adjective RIGID has 5 senses:

1. incapable of or resistant to bending

2. incapable of compromise or flexibility

3. incapable of adapting or changing to meet circumstances

4. designating an airship or dirigible having a form maintained by a stiff unyielding frame or structure

5. fixed and unmoving

  Familiarity information: RIGID used as an adjective is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• RIGID (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Incapable of or resistant to bending

Synonyms:

rigid; stiff

Context example:

a stiff neck

Similar:

inflexible (resistant to being bent)

Derivation:

rigidity; rigidness (the physical property of being stiff and resisting bending)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Incapable of compromise or flexibility

Synonyms:

rigid; strict

Similar:

intolerant (unwilling to tolerate difference of opinion)

Derivation:

rigidity; rigidness (the quality of being rigid and rigorously severe)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Incapable of adapting or changing to meet circumstances

Synonyms:

inflexible; rigid; unbending

Context example:

an unbending will to dominate

Similar:

unadaptable (not adaptable)

Derivation:

rigidness (the quality of being rigid and rigorously severe)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Designating an airship or dirigible having a form maintained by a stiff unyielding frame or structure

Similar:

semirigid (having a form maintained by a rigid internal structure as well as by internal gas pressure)

Domain category:

aeronautics; astronautics (the theory and practice of navigation through air or space)

Antonym:

nonrigid (designating an airship having a shape maintained only by internal gas pressure and without a supporting structure)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Fixed and unmoving

Synonyms:

fixed; rigid; set

Context example:

a face rigid with pain

Similar:

nonmoving; unmoving (not in motion)

Derivation:

rigidness (the physical property of being stiff and resisting bending)

 Context examples 

A rigid container having a wide mouth and often no neck which typically holds solid or semisolid drug products.

(Jar, NCI Thesaurus)

A device designed as the junction between objects; it may be flexible or rigid.

(Joint Device Component, NCI Thesaurus)

A capsule covered with a rigid outer shell.

(Hard Capsule Dosage Form, NCI Thesaurus)

Always proceeding from a rigid mouth and closed teeth, as if the jaw were locked and the face frozen up in pain.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Another Juno result suggests that beneath the weather layer, the planet rotates nearly as a rigid body.

(Jupiter’s Jet-Streams Are Unearthly, NASA)

A rigid sheet that forms a surface of a device or component.

(Panel Device Component, NCI Thesaurus)

Mr. Rochester heard, but heeded not: he stood stubborn and rigid, making no movement but to possess himself of my hand.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

"Using rigid devices is not the best option when you consider a number of different factors," he added.

(Flexible Wearable Electronics Use Body Heat for Energy, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

It was of a livid chalky white, and with something set and rigid about it which was shockingly unnatural.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Rigid artery walls are an independent predictor of cardiovascular- related disease and death and vitamin D deficiency appears to be a contributor.

(High Doses of Vitamin D Rapidly Reduce Arterial Stiffness, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)