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• s  having a stiff back
  the guards stood stiff-backed and unsmiling

• Little John Metaxas, who was pro-German in World War I, changed from a waverer to a stiff-backed defier of the Axis after several months of intrigue in that most intriguing .
• Set in an "isolated Latin American town," it's a tale of stiff-backed, implacable male pride.
• His accuser is a mitered Catholic archbishop, stiff-backed and sinister, holding a standard topped with a cross.