[n] excessive sternness; "severity of character"; "the harshness of his punishment was inhuman"; "the rigors of boot camp"
[n] the inelegance of someone stiff and unrelaxed (as by embarrassment)
[n] the property of moving with pain or difficulty; "he awoke with a painful stiffness in his neck"
[n] the physical property of being inflexible and hard to bend