1. Home
2. Idioms
3. poker

poker

---

---

have a corncob up one's ass

 and have a poker up one's ass 

1. Inf. to be very stiff. (Use with caution.) How come you're acting so high-and-mighty with me? Do you have a corncob up your ass? He was a terrible actor, stiff and wooden. He looked like he had a poker up his ass.

2. Inf. to be very touchy or irritable. Wow! Old Mr. Webster really has a corncob up his ass this morning. Watch out! Tom has a poker up his ass and he's looking for you. Better make yourself scarce.

See also: ass, have, up

*stiff as a poker

rigid and inflexible; stiff and awkward. (Usually used to describe people. *Also: as ~.) This guy's dead. He's cold and as stiff as a poker. John is not a very good dancer; he's stiff as a poker.

See also: poker, stiff

poker face

A visage lacking any expression that can be interpreted, as in Whenever Betty attended one of her children's performances, she managed to keep a poker face . This term alludes to the facial expression of a poker player who is expert at concealing his feelings about his hand. [c. 1880]

See also: face, poker

stiff as a board

Also, stiff as a poker. Inflexible, rigidly formal, unbending, as in This cloth is stiff as a board; what happened to it? or There he stood, stiff as a poker, unwilling to give an inch. The board in the first simile for rigidity is a slab of wood; the second, alluding to the iron implement used to push around logs in open fires, dates from the late 1700s.

See also: board, stiff