☼ Concept Map

''obstinate'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

↩ 🔳 🔳 🔳

Primary

⁀➴

''obstinate'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20250716210104-00-⌔

obstinate - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

obstinate (comparative more obstinate, superlative most obstinate)

  • Stubbornly adhering to an opinion, purpose, or course, usually with implied unreasonableness; persistent.
    • ✤ From this consideration it is that we have derived the custom, in times of war, to punish […] those who are obstinate to defend a place that by the rules of war is not tenable […]1
    • ✤ […] the junior Osborne was quite as obstinate as the senior: when he wanted a thing, quite as firm in his resolution to get it; and quite as violent when angered, as his father in his most stern moments2
  • Of an inanimate object, not easily subdued or removed.
    • ✤ an obstinate blockage in the pipe
    • ✤ Now it happened that Kasturbai […] had again begun getting haemorrhage, and the malady seemed to be obstinate.3
  • Of a facial feature or expression, fixed and unmoving.
    • ✤ He had the same pile of curly hair, but he was clean-shaven with a heavy, obstinate jowl.4

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English obstinat(e) (“obstinate, stubborn”), from Latin obstinātus, perfect passive participle of obstinō (“set one’s mind firmly upon, resolve”) (see -ate (adjective-forming suffix)), from ob (“before”) + ﹡ stinare, from stare (“to stand”). Doublet of ostinato.

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA: /ˈɒb.stɪ.nət/, /ˈɒb.stɪ.nɪt/
  • (US) enPR: äb’stənət, IPA: /ˈɑb.stə.nət/, /ˈɑb.stə.nɪt/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
  • Hyphenation (US): ob‧sti‧nate

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1686, Montaigne, translated by Charles Cotton, That men are justly punished for being obstinate in the defence of a fort that is not in reason to be defended: ↩

  2. 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 21, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC: ↩

  3. 1925-29, Mahadev Desai (translator), M.K. Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Part IV, Chapter XXIX, ↩

  4. 1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019: ↩

Link to original

Secondary

• • •