as in isolating
to deliberately ignore or treat rudely
in his sad and lonely old age, he stiff-armed even once-beloved friends
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of stiff-arming
After stiff-arming challengers on the front 9, Cink played free and easy.
—
Jay Paris, Oc Register, 30 Mar. 2026
The 24-song set reeled in an impressive 280,000 equivalent album units, stiff-arming a surging Bad Bunny from pole position.
—Carl Lamarre, Billboard, 19 Feb. 2026
Indiana kept its circle tight and held its belief tighter, stiff-arming infiltrators and doubters with equal authority.
—Dana O’Neil, CNN Money, 20 Jan. 2026
Jay Paris, Oc Register, 30 Mar. 2026
The 24-song set reeled in an impressive 280,000 equivalent album units, stiff-arming a surging Bad Bunny from pole position.
—Carl Lamarre, Billboard, 19 Feb. 2026
Indiana kept its circle tight and held its belief tighter, stiff-arming infiltrators and doubters with equal authority.
—Dana O’Neil, CNN Money, 20 Jan. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for stiff-arming
Verb
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In past outbreaks of the Andes virus, taking steps such as isolating people who are sick — and asking those who aren’t sick but have been exposed to stay away from others — have brought outbreaks to an end.—
Los Angeles Times,
Los Angeles Times,
14 May 2026
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Plenty of teams have found joy by isolating Chelsea’s defenders with a long ball over the top and City are not above doing so.—
Cerys Jones,
New York Times,
13 May 2026
Verb
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But the system kept rejecting it, saying my Colorado driver license wasn’t from the United States.—
Christopher Elliott,
Mercury News,
15 May 2026
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When Nita rebuffs the advances of the lightweight cad Christophe (who’s Pierre’s brother), that’s the one focused emotion in the movie — a woman rejecting workplace harassment.—
Owen Gleiberman,
Variety,
14 May 2026
Verb
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But Minogue is catching flack from multiple angles for challenging Healey to debates while snubbing numerous requests from fellow Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Shortsleeve, who made the ballot with just over 15% of the vote at the convention.—
Tim Dunn,
Boston Herald,
2 May 2026
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After decades of snubbing fungi as parasites or passive tubes, the escalating tally of their functions has led researchers to consider mycorrhizae a missing link in climate studies.—
Quanta Magazine,
Quanta Magazine,
6 Apr. 2026
Verb
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While there are dismemberments and other bits of gruesome violence to be found in the film, Badlands is largely aimed at endearing its audience rather than repulsing them.—
Richard Lawson,
HollywoodReporter,
4 Nov. 2025
Verb
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The Tempo didn’t make things easy, cutting the deficit to two points late and later trailing by just three with 31 seconds remaining and possession of the ball.—
Marisa Ingemi,
Los Angeles Times,
16 May 2026
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The bridge demonstrates a new, lighter approach to low-carbon infrastructure, cutting waste and CO₂ by depositing concrete only where needed.—
Srishti Gupta,
Interesting Engineering,
16 May 2026
Verb
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This summer, fight against the bite with bug-repelling hacks, like a Zevo bug trap and Thermacell mosquito repellent—no smelly chemicals required.—
Stephanie Osmanski,
Better Homes & Gardens,
10 May 2026
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Other deterrents act by repelling insects and disease organisms.—
Kim Toscano,
Southern Living,
9 May 2026
Verb
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But in discharging this function, poets are in danger of slighting another imperative, namely, to redress poetry as poetry, to set it up as its own category, an eminence established and a pressure exercised by distinctly linguistic means.—
Nick Laird,
The New York Review of Books,
25 Apr. 2026
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The subtext to the litigation is Oakley’s personal grievance against Dolan, whom the ex-player has long criticized, in part for slighting him compared to other Knicks legends.—
Michael McCann,
Sportico.com,
3 Nov. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Stiff-arming.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/stiff-arming. Accessed 19 May. 2026.
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