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Glite Dictionary
🪵 Very stiff 😐 No emotion
boardlike

boardlike

7.2
Having a stiff face or body and not showing any feeling
  • adjective
  • /ˈbɔrdˌlaɪk/
translation icon : impasible
  • His face remained boardlike, giving no hint of his true feelings about the situation.

Examples

  • During the tense meeting, she sat boardlike, betraying no emotion as the discussion heated up.

  • The actor delivered his lines in a boardlike manner, making it hard to connect with his character.

  • The hardhat drops his tire iron and topples over, boardlike.

    Fiction book (1992)

Synonyms

wooden
vsboardlike
16 5.1

Stiff and awkward in movement or expression

is more expressionless and emotionally flat rather than only awkward
robotlike
vsboardlike
6.8

Acting like a machine without feeling or choice

is stiff and expressionless without implying lack of independent thought
boardy
vsboardlike
7.9

Stiff and hard like a flat piece of wood

is about emotional stiffness and lack of expression rather than physical texture

Antonyms

expressive
41 3.4

Showing feelings and ideas clearly in the face or voice

flexible
31 3.4

Able to bend easily without breaking and return to shape

animated
30 3.7

Being full of life and energy

How Emotionless

boardlike
7.2
impassive
11 7.1
reserved
3.7
animated
30 3.7

Surface Forms

boardlike positive

Morphology

boardlike = board (semi-transparent) = board + like

The adjective is formed by '-like' but the sense is metaphorical ('stiff/expressionless'), so the relation to the concrete noun requires pragmatic inference.

Etymology

Boardlike comes from board ('flat piece of wood') and -like ('similar to'), so it can describe someone or something that is 'stiff and without emotion', because a board cannot move or show feeling.