Stiffness in a cod, or in any other fish, is a sure sign of freshness, though not always of quality.

TO CHOOSE LOBSTERS.This shell-fish, if it has been cooked alive, as it ought to have been, will have a stiffness in the tail, which, if gently raised, will return with a spring.

There is no grammar of the English speech which is not comic in its stiffness and inadequacy.

He had to shake himself to get the stiffness out of his limbs.

Her figure was perfect for her height, and there was a simplicity, a retired modesty about her, which was very characteristic, and formed a happy contrast to the cold artificial formality and studied stiffness which is called fashion.

This Dialogue, which is also called by the commentators [Greek], or, "Above the Clouds," has a great deal of easy wit and humour in it, without the least degree of stiffness or obscurity; it is equally severe on the gods and philosophers; and paints, in the warmest colours, the glaring absurdity of the whole pagan system.

He was losing all sense of it beyond a great stiffness of the neck.

We perceive scarcely any of that peculiar stiffness of style which makes so many otherwise excellent translations painful to read,the stiffness as of one walking in new boots,the result of dressing the words of one language in the grammatical construction of another.

We perceive scarcely any of that peculiar stiffness of style which makes so many otherwise excellent translations painful to read,the stiffness as of one walking in new boots,the result of dressing the words of one language in the grammatical construction of another.

On 9th December they met with bad weather and lost their foretop-gallant mast, but the rough handling they got was credited with improving the sailing qualities of the ship, as it took some of the stiffness out of her upperworks.

The slave of his duties, he was excessively severe in the service, and this stiffness and severity he had brought, it was said, into his household.

"Because I wanted you to come," said Mrs Keswick, "and because I thought I was stronger than I turned out to be; but you must make allowances for the stiffness which gets into old people's dispositions as well as their backs.

In their simplicity, their freshness, their quiet humor and not less quiet fun, their frequent narrowness and stiffness, and their deep and true religious sentiment, they have the real essence of the New England character.

I'm afraid there's very little to be done now;" and in a lower tone, with his hand on poor Philip Feltram's arm, and so down to his fingers, he said in Sir Bale Mardykes' ear, with a shake of his head, "Here, you see, poor fellow, here's the cadaveric stiffness; it's very melancholy, but it's all over, he's gone; there's no good trying any more.

Well, you'll say all that might possibly be fallacious; but what will you say to the cadaveric stiffness?

The book is indeed a protest against the stiffness of all cast-iron systems, and a warning against trusting in what is worn out.

After supper the various stunts registered on the checks and some rollicking songs filled the remainder of a merry evening in which there had been absolutely no chance for stiffness from beginning to end.

In spite of Brown's genial greetings to his guestshe had a special welcoming word for every onejust at first there was a bit of stiffness.

Am ashamed to acknowledge I have felt a little impatience, because my hands through stiffness, occasioned by cramp, have refused to perform their ordinary duty.

Deprived of this sensible and well-disposed intermediary, the Genevese stiffness and the Provencal ardor were not likely to hit it off.

Robert's and Grosvenor's joints were young and elastic, and the stiffness quickly left them, but both had done enough creeping and crawling for one night.

The warmth seemed to relieve the stiffness in his joints, and after each nursing during the day he attempted several awkward capers in his fright at a shadow or the rustle of a leaf.

Although the drawing of the figures and the treatment of the subjects had the quaint stiffness of the thirteenth century, their general effect, as seen from the shady bowers of the garden, was of a solemn brightness, a strange and fanciful richness, which was poetical and impressive.

But when the temporary Life was changed, and "this mortal put on immortality," their eyes and souls were filled with the utter stillness and repose of its external aspects; its features became rigid and fixed, and were settled to an everlasting and immutable calm; the vibrating grace of its lines departed, and their ever-varying complexity became simplified, and assumed the straightness and stiffness of Death.

The artificial stiffness and regularity of the Norfolk Island pine, and the sweet-smelling golden blooms of the Australian wattle, are sights almost as familiar in New Zealand as in their native lands.