Home > Terms > English, UK (UE) > Stiff upper lip
Stiff upper lip
One who has a stiff upper lip displays fortitude in the face of adversity, or exercises great self-restraint in the expression of emotion. The phrase is most commonly heard as part of the idiom "keep a stiff upper lip", and has traditionally been used to describe an attribute of British people, who are sometimes perceived by other cultures as being unemotional. A sign of weakness is trembling of the upper lip, hence the saying keep a stiff upper lip. When a person's upper lip begins to tremble, it is one of the first signs that the person is scared or shaken by experiencing deep emotion.
0
0
Improve it
- Part of Speech: noun
- Synonym(s):
- Blossary: American Idiom
- Industry/Domain: Language
- Category: Idioms
- Company:
- Product:
- Acronym-Abbreviation:
Other Languages:
Member comments
Terms in the News
Featured Terms
Industry/Domain: History Category: World history
Novgorod
Leading city of Russia and flourishing commercial centre throughout the Middle Ages, it became a principal office of the Hanseatic league. At the peak ...
Contributor
Featured blossaries
Browers Terms By Category
- Yachting(31)
- Ship parts(4)
- Boat rentals(2)
- General sailing(1)
Sailing(38) Terms
- Air conditioners(327)
- Water heaters(114)
- Washing machines & dryers(69)
- Vacuum cleaners(64)
- Coffee makers(41)
- Cooking appliances(5)
Household appliances(624) Terms
- Wireless networking(199)
- Modems(93)
- Firewall & VPN(91)
- Networking storage(39)
- Routers(3)
- Network switches(2)
Network hardware(428) Terms
- Alcohol & Hydroxybenzene & Ether(29)
- Pigments(13)
- Organic acids(4)
- Intermediates(1)