OBDURATE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Obdurate

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/ˈɑbdərət/ Listen

adjective

Obdurate adj.

Hardened in feelings, esp. against moral or mollifying influences; unyielding; hard-hearted; stubbornly wicked. "The very custom of evil makes the heart obdurate against whatsoever instructions to the contrary." "Art thou obdurate, flinty, hard as steel, Nay, more than flint, for stone at rain relenteth?"

Hard; harsh; rugged; rough; intractable. "Obdurate consonants." Note: Sometimes accented on the second syllable, especially by the older poets. "There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart."

Synonyms: Hard; firm; unbending; inflexible; unyielding; stubborn; obstinate; impenitent; callous; unfeeling; insensible; unsusceptible. Obdurate, Callous, Hardened. Callous denotes a deadening of the sensibilities; as, a callous conscience. Hardened implies a general and settled disregard for the claims of interest, duty, and sympathy; as, hardened in vice. Obdurate implies an active resistance of the heart and will aganst the pleadings of compassion and humanity.

verb

Obdurate v. t. To harden. (Obs.)

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Etymology of 'Obdurate'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Obdurate" Quotes from Famous Books

... that you are kind to the manner of my poem, though to the matter obdurate. Miss Mitford, too, says that it won't receive the sympathy proper to a home subject, because the English people don't care anything for the Italians now; despising them for their want of originality in Art! That's very good of the English people, ...

— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... showing them what virtue is, and where it best can be found—in justice, religion, and truth. The only reason that can possibly be adduced against it is one founded on fiction—namely, the case where an obdurate old geni, in the "Arabian Nights," was bound upon taking the life of a merchant, because he had struck out the eye of his invisible son. I recollect, likewise, a tale in the same book of charming fancies, which ...

— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens

... forty years' experience had never been so seriously disturbed. To his intense humiliation he found himself abjectly appealing to the senior member of the firm of Thomlinson & Shields. Not that Mr. Thomlinson was obdurate; in the presence of mere obduracy Mr. Rae might have found relief in the conscious possession of more generous and humane instincts than those supposed to be characteristic of the members of his profession. Mr. ...

— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor

... made an imperious gesture of dismissal. Tetlow, chopfallen but obdurate, got himself speedily out ...

— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips

... his feet running. Jim headed grimly for Pat, but Johnson reached him a breath in advance. Snatching up the reins and mounting, he dug Pat viciously with his huge rowels. At that Pat balked. The man swore and cursed and spurred again; but the horse remained obdurate. Seeing this, Johnson stopped spurring. Thereupon Pat flung forward, dragging his tether clear of its stake, and crowded close beside the gray. Jim was mounted on the gray, bending low in the saddle, racing in frantic ...

— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton

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