What's the difference between sniff and stiff?

Sniff


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To draw air audibly up the nose; to snuff; -- sometimes done as a gesture of suspicion, offense, or contempt.
  • (v. t.) To draw in with the breath through the nose; as, to sniff the air of the country.
  • (v. t.) To perceive as by sniffing; to snuff, to scent; to smell; as, to sniff danger.
  • (n.) The act of sniffing; perception by sniffing; that which is taken by sniffing; as, a sniff of air.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Because of the wide range of human nasal anatomic configurations, some people sniff odorants against comparatively high resistances.
  • (2) But some wise old heads sniff into their handkerchiefs because they have sat through too many costly "happy ever after" ceremonies that ended in acrimony.
  • (3) On a dreich November evening in Gourock, a red-coated mongrel is wandering between the seats in a room above a pub, pausing to sniff handbags for hidden treats.
  • (4) When Defoe did get a sniff six minutes before half-time, capitalising on a Sylvain Distin slip, he was denied by Artur Boruc’s leg.
  • (5) His running here was unstinting and he doubled his tally with a clinical finish after a first touch too smart for Pogatetz, preening perhaps after giving Boro a sniff of reprieve.
  • (6) When there is upheaval within China’s own borders – riots, protests, vicious political power struggles – hardly a sniff of it will be found in the pages of the country’s heavily-controlled press.
  • (7) We characterized the relationship between mouth pressure (Pmo) and esophageal pressure (Pes) during sniffs performed with open, semi-occluded, and occluded nose.
  • (8) In such destructive form Ighalo needs only the slightest sniff at goal and typically his trusty sidekick, Troy Deeney, was the provider, heading down a crossfield pass from Almen Abdi.
  • (9) "Partition" test was used, in which two males of one line were placed in a common cage divided into two sections by a transparent partition with holes; this partition divided the animals but allowed them to see and sniff each other.
  • (10) The range of Pdi during maximal sniffs (82-204 cm H2O) had better defined lower limits than Pdi during PImax.
  • (11) But she railed against commercial success, and at the first sniff of a big hit – Paper Planes , which sampled the Clash's Straight To Hell, and made the US and UK top 20 – she recoiled.
  • (12) While they spurned several opportunities here, allowing tension to creep in before Tadic scored the second 17 minutes from time, their three centre-halves did not allow the Watford strikeforce of Odion Ighalo and Troy Deeney a sniff.
  • (13) To assess the relationship between sniff resistance and olfaction, ten subjects without nasal pathology or complaint were asked to estimate the perceived magnitude of the odorant, ethyl butyrate, at each of four concentrations and against each of four different resistances.
  • (14) Odors could produce spiking responses that were either nonhabituating (response to every sniff) or rapidly habituating (response to first sniff only).
  • (15) MRR was determined from 10 sniffs for Pes, Pnp, and Pmo before fatigue, and at intervals up to 10 min after fatigue.
  • (16) But in the early days of Corbyn’s charge, the readers rightly got a sniff that on occasions we weren’t taking him seriously enough.
  • (17) The toluene users were more likely to sniff only in a group setting, probably because of the long duration of intoxication.
  • (18) More than one third of the patients aspirated a solution into the middle ear with one or more sniffs by aspirating air from their middle ears, demonstrating eustachian tube patency rather than obstruction.
  • (19) Don’t sniff at any movie that makes $350m (£215m) in worldwide receipts on largely middling reviews.
  • (20) Subjects learned to inspire at two flow rates, one twice as great as the other, by adjusting (on a cathode ray tube) the transduced trace of a sniff-produced pressure change to match either of two target contours.

Stiff


Definition:

  • (superl.) Not easily bent; not flexible or pliant; not limber or flaccid; rigid; firm; as, stiff wood, paper, joints.
  • (superl.) Not liquid or fluid; thick and tenacious; inspissated; neither soft nor hard; as, the paste is stiff.
  • (superl.) Firm; strong; violent; difficult to oppose; as, a stiff gale or breeze.
  • (superl.) Not easily subdued; unyielding; stubborn; obstinate; pertinacious; as, a stiff adversary.
  • (superl.) Not natural and easy; formal; constrained; affected; starched; as, stiff behavior; a stiff style.
  • (superl.) Harsh; disagreeable; severe; hard to bear.
  • (superl.) Bearing a press of canvas without careening much; as, a stiff vessel; -- opposed to crank.
  • (superl.) Very large, strong, or costly; powerful; as, a stiff charge; a stiff price.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) If you turn the bowl upside down, the whites should be stiff enough not to fall out.
  • (2) The stiffness of the fibre first rose abruptly in response to stretch and then started to decrease linearly while the stretch went on; after the completion of stretch the stiffness decreased towards a steady value which was equal to that during the isometric tetanus at the same sarcomere length, indicating that the enhancement of isometric force is associated with decreased stiffness.
  • (3) Current methodology for the in vitro determination of aortic and large artery stiffness is reviewed and involves three approaches: (1) the estimation of distensibility by pulse wave velocity measurement; (2) the estimation of distensibility from the fractional diameter change of a given arterial segment by imaging techniques (e.g., angiography, Doppler ultrasound) against pressure change; (3) the estimation of compliance by determining volume change against pressure change in the arterial system during diastolic runoff from the Windkessel model of the circulation.
  • (4) The maintenance of adequate blood circulation requires a sufficient ventricular contractility; in addition, to eject blood, the ventricles must first receive a sufficient volume, requiring a low diastolic stiffness.
  • (5) Stiffness was reduced in approximate proportion to the ramp stretch rate, and the reduction was confined largely to the elastic component.
  • (6) Proof stress, ultimate tensile strength, elongation, and plastic stiffness have been measured and results compared by use of analyses of variance.
  • (7) In other words, the stiffness of these areas was low and the recovery from deformation was fast.
  • (8) But the same court also just refused to hear an appeal of a Minnesota woman who's been ordered to pay more than $220,000 for downloading two-dozen songs – a testament to Congress' gift to Hollywood and its allies in the form of absurdly stiff penalties for minor infringement.
  • (9) The tension-length relation for the unstimulated (passive) cell is also linear between 1r and the elastic limit, but is displaced from the active tension-length curve and is of reduced stiffness.
  • (10) Bilaterals in summit seasons can be stiff exchanges, where digressions can carry risks: not enough said, too much said.
  • (11) We measured the stiffness of comparable configurations (1 or 2 bars) under axial compression, four-point-bending in two planes, and torsion.
  • (12) Tiny, tiny... rodents – some soft and grey, some brown with black stripes, in paintings, posters, wallcharts, thumb-tacked magazine clippings and poorly executed crayon drawings, hurling themselves fatally in their thousands over the cliff of their island home; or crudely taxidermied and mounted, eyes glazed and little paws frozen stiff – on every available surface.
  • (13) The bone stiffness also correlates strongly with the geometry (area) and slightly with bone mass; however, an unexpectedly low correlation was found between stiffness and density.
  • (14) Finally, fibrosis may paradoxically reduce passive stiffness if it leads to a thinning of the interventricular septum.
  • (15) A young male nephrotic patient, who was given small doses of clofibrate for hyperlipaemia, developed muscle pain, stiffness and very high serum levels of muscle enzymes.
  • (16) Impaired left ventricular stiffness may be an additional criterion for using corinfar in patients with coronary heart disease.
  • (17) The increase of elastic fibres following denervation and reinnervation represents an obviously meaningful reaction that may compensate for loss of tonic properties of muscle spindles without causing stiffness.
  • (18) Only the bone-patellar tendon-bone unit had maximum force and stiffness greater than that of the ACL.
  • (19) The initial stiffness is poorly described by material or catheter gauge.
  • (20) The stiffness tester and torque meter were found to yield nearly the same measurements of bending deformation for orthodontic wires as small as .007 inch diameter, provided the different bending apparatus are calibrated to each other.