One way to picture it: a thing that has stiffened solid — press it, push it, and it simply will not bend or take a new shape.
From the word’s history
From Latin rigidus 'stiff, hard', from rigeō 'to be stiff' — the modern word still carries the plain physical sense of something stiffened and unbending.
來自拉丁文 rigidus「僵硬的」，動詞 rigeō 是「發僵、變硬」（同一家族還有 rigor「僵硬、嚴格」）。這條線一路走到現代英文都沒走鐘：核心還是「硬到彎不下去」，只是後來也拿來說規則和人。
Wiktionary 'rigid' etymology tree (payload origin note)
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。
原始詞典資料7 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
rigidadj/ˈɹɪd͡ʒ.ɪd/
- 1
Stiff, rather than flexible.
- 2
Having inflexible thoughts, opinions, or beliefs.
- 3
Fixed, rather than moving.
- A sunflower, four more, one bowed, and horses in the distance standing rigid and still as toys.
- 4
Rigorous and unbending.
- 5
Uncompromising.
- Despite arguments to the contrary, she remained rigid in her stand.
rigidnoun/ˈɹɪd͡ʒ.ɪd/
- 1
aeronauticsaerospaceaviationAn airship whose shape is maintained solely by an internal and/or external rigid structural framework, without using internal gas pressure to stiffen the vehicle (the lifting gas is at atmospheric pressure); typically also equipped with multiple redundant gasbags, unlike other types of airship.
- The rigid could reach the greatest sizes and speeds of any airship, but was expensive to build and bulky to store. Rigids fell out of favor after the R101 and Hindenburg disasters made the type seem unsafe to the travelling public.
- 2
A bicycle with no suspension system.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。