Make Your Point > Archived Issues > OBDURATE
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Latin for "hard," durus gave us words like endure, duress, durable, today's word obdurate (hard and stubborn), and our previous word __durate (hardened physically or emotionally)--and, because hard things last a long time, during and duration.
But obdurate and all those other durus-cousins are unrelated to the similar-looking ordure, which comes not from durus but horridus. It's not something hard, but it is something horrible. Can you define ordure?
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"OBDURATE"
This word has Latin roots that mean "hardened against." Obdurate people and things are stubborn in a mean way, and even if you beg them or reason with them, they won't change.
Pronunciation:
OBB dur ut
Part of speech:
Adjective: "their obdurate hearts," "she's so obdurate."
Other forms worth knowing:
The adverb is "obdurately."
For the noun meaning "the quality of being obdurate," you can pick "obduracy," "obdurance," or "obdurateness."
And the noun meaning "the process of becoming obdurate" is "obduration."
How to use it:
"Obdurate" is the formal, serious, negative, and slightly judgmental word you need when "stubborn," "heartless," and "pigheaded" are too casual. The key here is to pick "obdurate" when you need to emphasize how someone refuses to change in the face of other people's urging or reasoning. If it's obdurate, it's hardened, and someone's trying to soften it.
Talk about obdurate people and personalities, like an obdurate opponent or an obdurate denier of climate change; obdurate groups of people, like an obdurate Congress; obdurate actions, behavior, and decisions, like an obdurate refusal; obdurate comments and questions; obdurate views, opinions, and perspectives; and even obdurate emotions, like obdurate skepticism or resignation.
You might say that people are (or stay) obdurate on or about some issue, or that they're obdurate in support or defense of something.
To get figurative, call something obdurate even though it can't literally sense the urging, reasoning, pressuring, or other pushback that's being directed at it. For example, you might talk about obdurate lies, truths, facts, realities, statistics, barriers, diseases, blindness, etc. Or: the obdurate march of time or progress, or an obdurate facial expression or body part. "She glared at us, her jaw obdurate."
examples:
"If you find the hired gardener, bred in some noted school in Europe, setting out trees in straight lines, exhort him to penitence at once. If he remain obdurate, cut the trees down with your little hatchet and pitch them over the fence, but keep your temper as sweet as a June morning."
— W. C. Bartlett, A Breeze from the Woods, 1883
"For a piece of technology that people spend so much time with, cable boxes remain obdurate and inscrutable 'black boxes' of functionality."
— Anthony Wing Kosner, Forbes, 16 August 2012
has this page helped you understand "obdurate"?
study it:
Explain the meaning of "obdurate" without saying "unresponsive to pleas" or "deaf to reasoning."
try it out:
Fill in the blanks: "(Someone)'s request to _____ met with an obdurate refusal."
Example: "The parents' request that I write the admissions essay for him met with an obdurate refusal."
before you review, play:
Spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—let your working memory empty out first.
Our game this month is Distinctive Definitions.
We're taking a scenic slog through poetic and philosophical definitions, wading through similes, metaphors, personifications, hyperboles, grandiloquence, and cheesiness.
In each issue, consider a definition provided by a poet, a writer, or a philosopher, and see if you can name the definiendum: the thing or concept being defined. (Is it life, love, time, death, music, sleep, pain, laughter, bubblegum, stubbing your toe…???) For example, James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) said, "What men call ________ and the Gods call dross." He’s defining something—what is it? "Treasure."
Now, you can play this game in earnest, trying to think of what the poet actually wrote--or you can play it for laughs, supplying the silliest or most sarcastic answer you can muster.
To take the silliness to the next level, gather your friends or family, deal each person a hand of cards from your copy of Apples to Apples (great for kids) or Cards Against Humanity (not for kids!!), and enjoy the ensuing hilarity. (In these games, players take turns being the judge for each round, picking the funniest from everyone’s submissions.) "What men call stretch limos and the Gods call dross." "What men call Morgan Freeman's voice and the Gods call dross."
From the previous issue:
Euripides (c 480-406 BCE) said, "_____ will explain it all. He is a talker, and needs no questioning before he speaks."
Answer: Time.
Try this one today:
Sophocles (c 497-406 BCE) said, "_____ is always the strongest argument."
review this word:
1. A near opposite of OBDURATE is
A. FLIMSY.
B. FRAGILE.
C. FLEXIBLE.
2. From Anique Hommels's book Unbuilding Cities, we learn why it's so hard to _____ urban structures: they're "obdurate," "_____ in their own histories as well as in the histories of their surroundings."
A. resist .. glorious
B. change .. anchored
C. categorize .. varied
a final word:
Make Your Point is crafted with love and brought to you each weekday morning by Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.
From Liesl's blog:
36 ways to study words.
Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
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Disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.
Latin for "hard," durus gave us words like endure, duress, durable, today's word obdurate (hard and stubborn), and our previous word __durate (hardened physically or emotionally)--and, because hard things last a long time, during and duration.
"OBDURATE" This word has Latin roots that mean "hardened against." Obdurate people and things are stubborn in a mean way, and even if you beg them or reason with them, they won't change.
"If you find the hired gardener, bred in some noted school in Europe, setting out trees in straight lines, exhort him to penitence at once. If he remain obdurate, cut the trees down with your little hatchet and pitch them over the fence, but keep your temper as sweet as a June morning."
Explain the meaning of "obdurate" without saying "unresponsive to pleas" or "deaf to reasoning."
Fill in the blanks: "(Someone)'s request to _____ met with an obdurate refusal."
Spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—let your working memory empty out first.
1. A near opposite of OBDURATE is
|