obstreperous
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /əbˈstɹɛp.əɹ.əs/
ipa: /ɒbˈstɹɛp.əɹ.əs/
ipa: /əbˈstɹɛpəɹəs/
ipa: /ɑːbˈstɹɛpəɹəs/
Forms: form: more obstreperous
form: most obstreperous
Etymology: Borrowed from Latin obstreperus, first attested circa 17th c. Compare obstropulous.
Senses: examples: text: [O]n a clear still summer evening you may hear from the battery of New York the obstreperous peals of broad-mouthed laughter of the Dutch negroes at Communipaw.
ref: 1809, Diedrich Knickerbocker [pseudonym; Washington Irving], chapter VII, in A History of New York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), New York, N.Y.: Inskeep & Bradford, […], →OCLC:
text: This disposition his subsequent life had not tended to change in any considerable degree, though increased knowledge, with much observation, and a little reading, had rendered the gaiety of the young man a very different thing to the obstreperous mirth of the boy.
ref: 1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXII, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 277:
text: […] my hope
Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope
With that obstreperous joy success would bring
ref: 1855, Robert Browning, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came:
text: He developed an obstreperous baritone—it was the same voice, now more specifically in action, that I had first heard on the devastated prairie; and he made himself rather preponderant, whether he happened to know the song or not.
ref: 1918, Henry B[lake] Fuller, On the Stairs, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Hougton Mifflin Company; Cambridge, Mass.: The Riverside Press, →OCLC, part II, section III, page 57:
synonyms: clamorous
loud
noisy
vociferous
glosses: Attended by, or making, a loud and tumultuous noise; boisterous.
examples: text: [W]e came to Whittingham. Thence to Newcastle, where an obstreperous horse retarded us for an hour at least.
ref: October 1827, Sir Walter Scott, The Journal of Sir Walter Scott:
text: My dress was draggled, my hat had slipped back, and the kinks and curls of my obstreperous hair were something awful.
ref: 1903, Lucy Maud Montgomery, “A Sandshore Wooing”, in Short Stories: 1902-1903:
text: They reviled the committee collectively and singly; bragged that they would shoot Coleman, Truett, Durkee, and some others at sight; flourished weapons, and otherwise became so publicly and noisily obstreperous that the committee decided they needed a lesson.
ref: 1915, Stewart Edward White, “chapter 70”, in The Gray Dawn:
text: This is what your boyfriend did, honey. When he was in one of his more obstreperous moods.
ref: 2015, 3 min from the start, in Penny Dreadful, season 2, episode 9:
text: He said he loved making movies like Luca Guadagnino’s “A Bigger Splash,” in which his charismatic, obstreperous character, Harry Hawkes, a music producer described by the Italian director as “a pagan fawn,” does a Dionysian dance to the Rolling Stones song “Emotional Rescue.”
ref: 2022 October 22, Maureen Dowd, “Ralph Fiennes, Master of Monsters”, in The New York Times:
synonyms: word: recalcitrant
word: uncooperative
word: unruly
word: adamant
word: ardent
word: bent on
word: bloody-minded
word: bullheaded
word: certain
word: chronic
word: confirmed
word: determined
word: diehard
word: dogged
word: hard-hearted
word: hard-nosed
word: hardheaded
word: headstrong
word: immovable
word: incalcitrant
word: inflexible
word: irrefragable
word: insistent
word: intractable
word: intransigent
word: intrepid
word: inveterate
word: mulish
word: obdurate
word: obstinate
word: obstreperous
word: peevish
word: peremptory
word: persistent
word: pertinacious
word: pigheaded
word: recalcitrant
word: refractory
word: resolute
word: resolved
word: rigid
word: self-willed
word: stalwart
word: staunch
word: steadfast
word: steady
word: stubborn
word: stubborn as a mule
word: sullen
word: tenacious
word: terminal
word: thran
word: thwart
word: tough
word: truculent
word: unbending
word: uncompromising
word: unyielding
word: vehement
word: wilful
word: willful
glosses: Stubbornly defiant; disobedient; resistant to authority or control (whether in a noisy manner or not).
Derived terms: obstreperosity
obstreperously
obstreperousness
stroppy
unobstreperous