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n. 1. a. Strictness or severity, as in action or judgment: "The desert fostered a closed world of faith and rigor and harsh judgment: almost every decision here could have lethal consequences" (Jeffrey Tayler). b. A harsh or trying circumstance; a hardship or difficulty: the rigors of working in a coal mine. See Synonyms at difficulty. c. Archaic A harsh or severe act. 2. a. Strictness in adhering to standards or a method; exactitude: "To study the brain with scientific rigor, behaviorists logically restricted their experiments to ones in which the brain was the source of measurable effects" (Robert Pollack). b. A standard or exacting requirement, as of a field of study: the intellectual rigors of advanced mathematics. 3. Medicine Shivering or trembling, as caused by a chill. 4. Physiology A state of rigidity in living tissues or organs that prevents response to stimuli. 5. Obsolete Stiffness or rigidity. [Middle English rigour, from Old French, from Latin rigor, from rigēre, to be stiff; see reig- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.] |
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