What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Rigid vs Rigorous - What's the difference?

rigid | rigorous |

As adjectives the difference between rigid and rigorous

is that rigid is stiff, rather than flexible while rigorous is manifesting, exercising, or favoring rigour; allowing no abatement or mitigation; scrupulously accurate; exact; strict; severe; relentless; as, a rigorous officer of justice; a rigorous execution of law; a rigorous definition or demonstration.

rigid

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Stiff, rather than flexible.
  • Fixed, rather than moving.
  • * 2011 ,David Foster Wallace, The Pale King ,Penguin Books, page 5:
  • A sunflower, four more, one bowed, and horses in the distance standing rigid and still as toys.
  • Rigorous and unbending.
  • Uncompromising.
  • Synonyms

    * unbending, inflexible

    Antonyms

    * flexible * moving * compromising

    Derived terms

    * rigidity * rigidly * rigidness

    References

    * *

    rigorous

    English

    Alternative forms

    * rigourous

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Manifesting, exercising, or favoring rigour; allowing no abatement or mitigation; scrupulously accurate; exact; strict; severe; relentless; as, a rigorous officer of justice; a rigorous execution of law; a rigorous definition or demonstration.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Boundary problems , passage=Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too. GDP measures the total value of output in an economic territory. Its apparent simplicity explains why it is scrutinised down to tenths of a percentage point every month.}}
  • Severe; intense; inclement; as, a rigorous winter.
  • Violent.
  • Synonyms

    * See also

    Antonyms

    * capricious