tieso

Inherited from Old Spanish teso, attested from the 1300s (in the Sumas de historia troyana, and later the Rimado de Palacio), inherited from Latin tēnsus. Compare the borrowed doublet tenso. Coromines & Pascual have Cristóbal de las Casas's Vocabulario de las lenguas española y toscana (1570) as their first known attestation with the diphthong -ie-, a development perhaps influenced by the conjugation él/ella tiende, of tender.

• IPA^(key): /ˈtjeso/ [ˈt̪je.so]
• Rhymes: -eso
• Syllabification: tie‧so

tieso (feminine tiesa, masculine plural tiesos, feminine plural tiesas)

1. stiff, rigid

   Synonyms: rígido, inflexible

   Me preocupa que sus codos estén tan tiesos, doctor.

   Doctor, I'm worried her elbows are so stiff.

   El material es demasiado tieso; necesitamos otro.

   The material is too stiff; we need another one.

2. starched, very formal

   Escribe con excelentes detalles, pero con un estilo tieso.

   He writes with excellent detail, but his style is very formal.

3. strong-willed, stubborn
4. (colloquial) frozen solid, rigid due to cold

   Dejaste tan atrás la leche en el estante del refrigerador que ahora está tiesa.

   You left the milk so far back in the fridge shelf that it's now frozen solid.

5. (slang) erect, hard, stiff (having an erect penis; translates in some contexts to erection, boner, stiffy)

   Lo tengo tieso.

   I've got a boner.

6. (colloquial) dead

   Synonym: muerto

   Mira si está tieso.

   Check if he's dead.

7. (colloquial) in shock, astonished

   Los dejaste tiesos cuando los apantallaste con tus rimas improvisadas.

   You left them in shock when you impressed them with your improvised rhymes.

8. (colloquial) broke, skint (without money)

   Synonym: pelado

tieso m (plural tiesos)

1. A snake eel

• Joan Coromines, José A[ntonio] Pascual (1983) “tender”, in Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico (in Spanish), volume V (Ri–X), Madrid: Gredos, →ISBN, page 459

• “tieso”, in Diccionario de la lengua española (in Spanish), 23rd edition, Royal Spanish Academy, 2014 October 16