stiff upper lip

1. 1.

   self-restraint in the expression of emotion (especially fear or grief)

   “the British like to keep a stiff upper lip”

   Broaderself-restraint

Questions about stiff upper lip

What does stiff upper lip mean?

stiff upper lip means "self-restraint in the expression of emotion (especially fear or grief)".

Is stiff upper lip a common word?

stiff upper lip is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.