Stiffing

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The act of deliberately refusing to pay someone what is owed
2. A term often associated with non-payment or evasion of debt obligations in a financial context
3. Describing a situation where an individual fails to compensate another for services rendered or goods provided

Etymology: "Stiffing" is the present participle of "stiff" used as a verb meaning to cheat someone out of payment, and its roots lie in a word for rigidity. "Stiff" came into English from Old English "stīf", which meant firm or unbending, and that sense is shared with Dutch "stijf" and German "steif". Its ancestry reaches back to a Proto-Indo-European root, "steypós", with the same stiff, hardened sense. The verb use is a modern slang extension. Its figurative sense of refusing to pay comes from the idea of leaving someone stiff, or left without what they are owed, a jump from physical rigidity to an unfair holding back of money. A helpful fact is that the everyday pronunciation "stif" rather than the expected "staif" probably comes from compounds such as "stiffly", where the vowel shortened before a consonant cluster.

Synonyms: cheating, defrauding, snubbing

Antonyms: rewarding, paying, acknowledging