A coarse cotton fabric stiffened with glue; used in bookbinding and to stiffen clothing.

Roget 855: affectation; affectedness etc. adj.; acting a part etc. v.; pretense etc. (falsehood) 544, (ostentation) 882; boasting etc. 884.    charlatanism, quackery, shallow profundity; pretension, airs, pedantry, purism, precisianism, euphuism; teratology etc. (altiloquence) 577.    mannerism, simagree, grimace.    conceit, foppery, dandyism, man millinery, coxcombry, puppyism.    stiffness, formality, buckram; prudery, demureness, coquetry, mock modesty, minauderie, sentimentalism; mauvais honte, false shame.    affector, performer, actor; pedant, pedagogue, doctrinaire, purist, euphuist, mannerist; grimacier; lump of affectation, precieuse ridicule [Fr.], bas bleu [Fr.], blue stocking, poetaster; prig; charlatan etc. (deceiver) 548; petit maitre etc. (fop) 854; flatterer etc. 935; coquette, prude, puritan.    ... show more

Dutch: buckram
Polish: bukram

Stiffen with or as with buckram.

Rigidly formal:
— His prose has a buckram quality.

synonyms: starchy, stiff.