0 (of a person's behaviour or way of speaking or writing) too formal and not smooth or natural: --
1 (of behavior, speech, or writing) too formal and not smooth or natural: --
Photius' style is impersonal, not to say stilted, and he would hardly have needed to tell his brother who their father was.
In fact, to describe the central performances in these terms could be misleading: to our eyes, the acting looks mannered, with a rather stilted, melodramatic quality about it.
Because the language of the popular press is lively and colloquial, in contrast to the stilted formulaic language of official publications, people believe what it says is true.
Although somewhat stilted due to its verb-initial order, this sentence is grammatical, embedded in a larger narrative context.
Echoing, and technological attempts at dealing with it, render much of the speech stilted and prone to breakdown.
The former is fine, if a little stilted, while the latter is quite awkward with either passive auxiliary.
Because of the small sample of stilted trees, only unbuttressed and buttressed trees are considered hereafter.
In his serenade, for example, the rhymes are obvious and stilted; more grotesque still are the violations of metre and the misplaced accents.
