rigor

See also: Rigor

English

Etymology

From Old French, from Latin rigor (“stiffness, rigidity, rigor, cold, harshness”), from rigere (“to be rigid”).

Pronunciation

• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈɹɪɡɚ/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

  • Audio (Texas):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪɡə(ɹ)
• Homophones: rigger, rigour

Noun

rigor (countable and uncountable, plural rigors)

1. US spelling of rigour.
2. (medicine) A feeling of cold with shivering accompanied by a rise in body temperature.
3. (physiology, informal) Ellipsis of rigor mortis.
   • 2005, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Pashazade, page 4, paragraph 3:

     Heat always upped the rate at which rigor gripped a corpse.

Derived terms

• break rigor
• rigor caloris
• rigored
• rigorisation
• rigorise
• rigorism
• rigoristic
• rigorization
• rigorize
• rigorous

Catalan

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin rigōrem.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencia) [riˈɣor]

• Audio (Barcelona):

  (file)

Noun

rigor m or f (plural rigors)

1. rigour/rigor
2. precision, exactness
3. harshness (of a climate)

Related terms

• rigorós

Further reading

• “rigor” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.
• “rigor”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007
• “rigor”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2025

Italian

Noun

rigor m (apocopated)

1. apocopic form of rigore

Latin

Etymology

From rigeō (“to be rigid”) +‎ -or.

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈrɪ.ɡɔr]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈriː.ɡor]

Noun

rigor m (genitive rigōris); third declension

1. stiffness, rigidity
2. rigor, cold, harshness, severity

Declension

Third-declension noun.

	singular	plural
nominative	rigor	rigōrēs
genitive	rigōris	rigōrum
dative	rigōrī	rigōribus
accusative	rigōrem	rigōrēs
ablative	rigōre	rigōribus
vocative	rigor	rigōrēs

Derived terms

• rigōrātus

Related terms

• rigefaciō
• rigēns
• rigeō
• rigēscō
• rigidē
• rigiditās
• rigidō
• rigidus

Descendants

• Catalan: rigor
• English: rigor, rigour
• French: rigueur
• Galician: rigor
• Italian: rigore
• Piedmontese: rigor
• Polish: rygor
• Portuguese: rigor
• Romanian: rigoare
• Spanish: rigor

References

• “rigor”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “rigor”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "rigor", in Charles du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• “rigor”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “rigor”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

Old French

Noun

rigor oblique singular, f (oblique plural rigors, nominative singular rigor, nominative plural rigors)

1. harshness; severity
2. stiffness; rigidity

Descendants

• English: rigor, rigour
• French: rigueur

Portuguese

Pronunciation

 

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ʁiˈɡoʁ/ [hiˈɡoh]

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ʁiˈɡoʁ/ [hiˈɡoh]
  • (São Paulo) IPA^(key): /ʁiˈɡoɾ/ [hiˈɡoɾ]
  • (Rio de Janeiro) IPA^(key): /ʁiˈɡoʁ/ [χiˈɡoχ]
  • (Southern Brazil) IPA^(key): /ʁiˈɡoɻ/ [hiˈɡoɻ]

 

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /ʁiˈɡoɾ/ [ʁiˈɣoɾ]

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /ʁiˈɡoɾ/ [ʁiˈɣoɾ]
  • (Southern Portugal) IPA^(key): /ʁiˈɡo.ɾi/ [ʁiˈɣo.ɾi]

• Rhymes: (Portugal, São Paulo) -oɾ, (Brazil) -oʁ
• Hyphenation: ri‧gor

Noun

rigor m (plural rigores)

1. rigour (higher level of difficulty)
2. rigour (severity or strictness)
3. rigidity; inflexibility

Related terms

• rígido
• rigoroso

Further reading

• “rigor”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2025
• “rigor”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2025

Serbo-Croatian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /rîɡor/
• Hyphenation: ri‧gor

Noun

rȉgor m inan (Cyrillic spelling ри̏гор)

1. rigour

Declension

Declension of rigor

	singular
nominative	rigor
genitive	rigora
dative	rigoru
accusative	rigor
vocative	rigore
locative	rigoru
instrumental	rigorom

Spanish

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin rigōrem.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /riˈɡoɾ/ [riˈɣ̞oɾ]
• Rhymes: -oɾ
• Syllabification: ri‧gor

Noun

rigor m (plural rigores)

1. rigour

Related terms

• rigorismo
• riguroso

Further reading

• “rigor”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025