stiff, adv. (antedating)

[Jonathan Lighter]

OED has "scared stiff" as the earliest such collocation (1905).

1878 _Daily Constitution_ (Atlanta) (Dec. 29) (unp.) (NewspaperArchive):
Then Henry ripped out a signal of distress that scared the baby stiff as a
telegraph pole.

JL

--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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