rigid, a. and n.
(ˈrɪdʒɪd)
Also 6 regyd, 7 rigide, riged, ridgid, 8 ridged.
[ad. L. rigidus, f. rigēre to be stiff; cf. F. rigide, Sp., Pg., It. rigido.]
A. adj.
1. a. Stiff, unyielding; not pliant or flexible; firm; hard.
| 1538 Starkey England i. ii. 40 Master Lvpset, you euer bryng in some regyd knottys in communycatyon. 1615 Crooke Body of Man 211 Being alwayes rigid or stiffe it woulde haue beene..vncomely. 1631 Vicars Eng. Hallelujah Ps. cv. 22 And then the rigid Rockes he rent, From whence did Floods of Water flow. 1667 Milton P.L. vi. 83 With upright beams innumerable Of rigid Spears. 1728 Chambers Cycl. s.v. Marble, Rigid Marble [is] that which, being too hard, works with difficulty, and is liable to splinter. 1796 Withering Brit. Plants (ed. 3) I. 177 The cup becoming more rigid, contains the seeds. 1832 Babbage Econ. Manuf. xxvii. (ed. 3) 263 Metals are not perfectly rigid but elastic. 1862 Darwin Orchids iii. 116 It is nearly rigid and appears fibrous. 1873 Richards Operator's Handbk. 115 The saws have to be at least one-third thicker in order to be rigid enough for their work. |
| fig. 1708 J. Philips Cyder i. 592 Cressy Plains..confess What the Silures Vigour unwithstood Cou'd do in rigid Fight. 1710 Palmer Proverbs 82 There is a rigid horror and chagrin in envy, malice, and revenge. 1822 Hazlitt Table-t. Ser. ii. vi. (1869) 139 We have none of the hardy spirit or rigid forms of antiquity. 1888 Bryce Amer. Commw. (1890) I. 477, I propose to call it a Rigid Constitution, i.e. one which cannot be bent or twisted by the action of the legislature. |
| Comb. 1816 J. Scott Vis. Paris (ed. 5) 34 The thin-faced rigid-nerved men. 1870 Morris Earthly Paradise I. 460 That..melody, He drew from out the rigid-seeming lyre. 1882 Nature XXVII. 201 The ordinary lunar irregularities which are recognised in rigid-body astronomy. 1932 W. Faulkner Light in August vii. 140 He walked stiffly past her, rigidfaced. |
b. spec. in plant-names (see quots.).
| 1859 Miss Pratt Brit. Grasses VI. 33 Rigid Sedge. Ibid. 164 Rigid Three-branched Polypody. Ibid. 179 Rigid Fern. 1871 Cooke Handbk. Fungi I. 190 Cortinarius..rigens, Rigid Cortinarius. 1877 F. G. Heath Fern World 359 The Rigid Buckler Fern, Lastrea rigida. |
c. spec. of an airship: belonging to the type whose shape is maintained by a framework and not (chiefly) by the pressure of gas in the envelope.
| [1902 Encycl. Brit. XXV. 101/2 He [sc. Count Zeppelin] has gained an advantage by attaching his propellers to the balloon,..but this requires a rigid framework and a great increase of weight.] 1909 A. Berget Conquest of Air ii. 26 There is obviously another way..; it is to make the balloon rigid. 1910 C. C. Turner Aerial Navig. To-day iv. 62 One of the most famous airships of the rigid type was Zeppelin No. 4. 1930 Daily Express 6 Oct. 2/4 He..was engaged on research into problems connected with rigid airship construction. 1977 It June 16 And so began the era of the rigid airship. 1980 Nature 20 Mar. 288/1 In retrospect, this was the most successful rigid airship designed in this country but the Air Staff decided that they had no use for it and it flew for the last time on 20 September 1921. |
d. Phr. to bore, scare, etc., (someone) rigid: to be excessively boring, frightening, etc. colloq.
| 1943 [see bind v. 22]. 1952 M. Tripp Faith is Windsock xiii. 200 Dick's bloody unruffled ways and his bloody reasonable talk bind me rigid. 1970 O. Norton Dead on Prediction vii. 136 You shook him rigid, producing that photograph of her. He was afraid he'd be suspected. 1972 K. Campbell Thunder on Sunday 58 It's no tourist place, I assure you... You'd be bored rigid. 1976 R. Barnard Little Local Murder viii. 102 They'll have made the connection: anonymous letters—murder. And..they'll be scared rigid. |
2. Of cold, etc.: Severe, hard, rigorous. rare.
| 1611 B. Jonson Catiline i. i, As when rigid frosts Have bound up brooks and rivers. 1726 G. Shelvocke Voy. round World 72 One would think it impossible that any thing living could subsist in so rigid a climate. |
3. Rigorous, harsh, severe, inflexible, strict: a. Of actions, conduct, etc.
| 1624 Massinger Renegado ii. iv, All tortures that A flinty hangmans rage could execute, Or rigide tyranny command with pleasure. 1660 R. Coke Power & Subj. 72 The violent and rigid execution of laws against all offenders. 1729 Butler Serm. Wks. 1874 II. 126 We shall [not] be able to say..where rigid right and justice ends, and oppression begins. 1769 Bancroft Guiana 367 Rigid treatment..renders them content. 1807 J. Barlow Columb. iii. 3 They rule with rigid but with generous care. 1840 Thirlwall Greece VII. 155 A very rigid inquiry was instituted. 1868 Freeman Norm. Conq. (1877) II. 487 Rigid justice, untempered by mercy, easily changes into oppression. |
b. Of persons or disposition. Hence also of personality, and of traits and mental processes. Cf. rigidity 2 b.
| 1634 Habington Castara i. (Arb.) 13 If my rigid friend question superciliously the setting forth of these Poems. 1665 R. Brathwait Comment. Two Tales (1901) 97 The clear and weighty Judgments of the Strictest and Rigidest Censors. 1710 Steele Tatler No. 175 ¶2 The young Man is under the Dictates of a rigid Schoolmaster. 1752 Young Brothers iv. i, O rigid gods! and shall I then fall down! 1775 De Lolme Eng. Const. i. iii. (1784) 48 A prince of a more rigid disposition. 1949 Jrnl. Personality XVII. 322 A man with rigid delusions may readily bring his delusions in and out of conscious processes. 1960 M. Rokeach Open & Closed Mind ix. 183 Rigid thinking should be expected to lead to difficulties in thinking analytically. 1964 Gould & Kolb Dict. Social Sci. 494/1 Personalities which are highly integrated may be spoken of as ‘rigid’. 1972 Jrnl. Social Psychol. LXXXVII. 66 Of the three tests used, only the inventory gave meaningful differences, with Communists and Fascists being more rigid than normals. 1972 A. Storr Dynamics of Creation viii. 92 The obsessional [personality] is controlled, inhibited, and rigid in his ideas. |
4. a. Strict in opinion or observance; scrupulously exact or precise in respect of these.
| 1598 B. Jonson Ev. Man in Humour iii. iii, H' is no precisian..Nor rigid Roman-catholike. 1657 Penit. Conf. iii. 23 Marvel not at the rigid Penitents of that age. 1687 A. Lovell tr. Thevenot's Trav. i. 53 He was a very riged Man, as I understood at a Visite which the French Ambassadour..made to him. 1707 Potter in Lett. Lit. Men (Camden) 271 Knox, a rigid presbyterian. 1790 Bruce Source Nile II. 579 David was a rigid adherent to the church of Alexandria. 1827 Lytton Pelham xiv, In the theory of philosophy he was tolerably rigid. 1849 Macaulay Hist. Eng. ii. I. 170 He had indeed some reason to dislike the rigid sect. 1874 Green Short Hist. vii. §4. 378 The Lennoxes had remained rigid Catholics. |
b. Of life, conduct, etc.
| 1634 Milton Comus 450 Rigid looks of Chast austerity. 1738 T. Shaw Trav. Barbary 306 Their Marabbutts..are generally Persons of a rigid and austere Life. 1753 R. Clayton Jrnl. fr. Cairo to Mt. Sinai 22 A cave, in which two kings sons spent their lives in performing rigid penances. 1872 Routledge's Ev. Boy's Ann. 296/1 The most rigid principles of honesty. |
c. Of observances or practices.
| 1736 Butler Anal. ii. i, The rigid Observance of the Sabbath. 1751 Earl of Orrery Remarks Swift (1752) 105 The history of Brutus may instruct us, what unhappy effects the rigid exercise of superior virtue..may produce. 1782 F. Burney Cecilia ii. iv, A rigid seclusion from company was productive of a lassitude as little favourable to active virtue as dissipation itself. 1842 Combe Digestion 324 If such a change can be effected, by rigid adherence to rules, in the course of two or three months. 1861 Ld. Brougham Brit. Constit. xiv. 199 His avaricious habits inclined him to rigid parsimony. |
5. a. Exact, precise, in respect of procedure or method; admitting or allowing of no deviation from strict accuracy.
| 1646 Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. 14 All deductions from metaphors, parables, allegories, unto reall and rigid interpretations. 1676 G. Towerson Decalogue 47 Those descriptions..rather as emblems and pictures than as rigid definitions of his nature. 1713 Berkeley Hylas & Phil. Pref., To observe the most rigid laws of reasoning. 1729 Law Serious C. xxii. (ed. 2) 440 This is as strictly true, in the most rigid sense. 1805 Foster Ess. iii. iii. II. 40 The rigid laws of time and distance. 1860 Tyndall Glac. i. i. 5. The fossils which they contained were subjected to rigid scrutiny. 1869 ― Notes Lect. Light §214 For it has been demonstrated, by the most rigid experiments, that the velocity of light diminishes as the index of refraction increases. |
b. Logic. (See quots.)
| 1972 S. A. Kripke in Davidson & Harman Semantics of Natural Lang. 269 Let's use some terms quasi-technically. Let's call something a rigid designator if in any possible world it designates the same object, a non rigid or accidental designator if that is not the case. 1975 N. Rescher Theory of Possibility iv. 86 A rigid designator— i.e., one that inevitably specifies precisely the same individual in the context of every possible world. (This concept coincides pretty much with what is traditionally referred to..as a ‘logically proper name’ for an individual.) 1976 Times Lit. Suppl. 12 Nov. 1434/3 Ruth Marcus's suggested criterion for rigidity of predicates; that F is rigid if necessarily anything that is F is necessarily F. |
B. n.
1. A strict or precise person. rare.
| 1712 Steele Spect. No. 492 ¶4 If you do not take measures for the immediate Redress of us Rigids, as the Fellows call us. 1749 W. Douglass Summary I. 444 The Rigids generally seceded from the more moderate, and removed with their teachers or ministers without the limits or jurisdiction of the colony. |
2. A rigid airship. Cf. sense 1 c of the adj.
| 1919 Sphere 19 July 54/1 Reports to the Admiralty..urging them to build rigids without delay. 1920 Glasgow Herald 3 Dec. 5 The lecturer said that after comparing non-rigids, semi-rigids, and rigids it was obvious that it would be the rigid airships which would be developed for commercial work. 1928 Daily Tel. 12 June 17/2 The Mayfly, the first naval rigid, was being built. 1963 A. Smith Throw out Two Hands ii. 31 Lighter-than-air flying suddenly took on a sterner aspect with the development of the dirigible... The word blimp comes from this period for, so the generally accepted story goes, the dirigibles were classified into A—rigid and B—limp. Be that as it may, the rigids were the most exciting. |
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Add: [B.] [2.] b. A lorry or truck which is not articulated. Cf. articulated ppl. a. 2 b.
| 1970 Commercial Motor 25 Sept. 114 The future of the tipper..lies with maximum-load four-, six-, and eight-wheeled rigids rather than articulated vehicles. 1981 Times 18 June 20/3 This would enable Cummins to lift its own share of the diesel market for rigids from 7 per cent to 18 per cent in four years. 1985 Sunday Times 24 Feb. 7/3 (Advt.), A new area of business led Harry Rawlings to look beyond his fleet of 140 heavy rigids. 1988 Truck & Driver Oct. 7/1, I always check to see which way the drag is going before I alter the direction of the rigid. |
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▸ rigid inflatable adj. and n. Naut. (a) adj. designating a boat consisting of a lightweight rigid hull, the top of which is ringed by a large inflatable tube; (b) n. a boat of this kind.
| 1977 Lethbridge (Alberta) Herald 12 July 27/5 This *rigid inflatable self-righting craft is fast replacing the conventional lifeboat. 1982 Offshore Mar. 93/2 The employment of Rigid Inflatable Boats (RIB) has dramatically increased the efficiency of the pick-up operation. 1984 Skin Diver (Nexis) Oct. 109 Although the concept of rigid inflatables makes sense, it involves a few compromises in the areas of portability and interior space. 2000 Sunday Herald (Glasgow) 10 Sept. (Seven Days section) 6/2 RIBs (rigid inflatable boats to the uninitiated) to land people and stores. |