OBDURATE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does obdurate mean? 

• OBDURATE (adjective)
  The adjective OBDURATE has 2 senses:

1. stubbornly persistent in wrongdoing

2. showing unfeeling resistance to tender feelings

  Familiarity information: OBDURATE used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• OBDURATE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Stubbornly persistent in wrongdoing

Synonyms:

cussed; obdurate; obstinate; unrepentant

Similar:

unregenerate; unregenerated (not reformed morally or spiritually)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Showing unfeeling resistance to tender feelings

Synonyms:

flint; flinty; granitic; obdurate; stony

Context example:

the child's misery would move even the most obdurate heart

Similar:

hardhearted; heartless (lacking in feeling or pity or warmth)

 Context examples 

Grave and reverend seniors seemed to have caught the prevailing spirit as badly as the students, and I saw white-bearded men rising and shaking their fists at the obdurate Professor.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“Miss Dartle,” said I, “if you can be so obdurate as not to feel for this afflicted mother—”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

He threatened excommunication and hell fire in my last moments if I continued obdurate.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

François was obdurate, but when he turned his back Buck again displaced Sol-leks, who was not at all unwilling to go.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

“Now, David,” said Mr. Murdstone, “a sullen obdurate disposition is, of all tempers, the worst.”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

But I found out afterwards that he was a mild man of a heavy temperament, whose place in the business was to keep himself in the background, and be constantly exhibited by name as the most obdurate and ruthless of men.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

But he looked such a very obdurate butcher as he stood scraping the great block in the shop, and moreover, his appearance was so little improved by the loss of a front tooth which I had knocked out, that I thought it best to make no advances.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)