obdurate

Mid 15th century, from Latin obduratus (“hardened”), form of obdūrō (“harden”), from ob- (“against”) + dūrō (“harden, render hard”), from durus (“hard”).[1] Compare durable, endure.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɒbdjʊɹət/, /ˈɒbdjʊɹɪt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈɑːbdjʊɹɪt/, /ˈɑːbdʊɹɪt/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Sometimes accented on the second syllable, especially by the older poets.

obdurate (comparative more obdurate, superlative most obdurate)

1. Stubbornly persistent, generally in wrongdoing; refusing to reform or repent.
   • 1593, Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Book I:

     ... sometimes the very custom of evil making the heart obdurate against whatsoever instructions to the contrary ...

   • 1591, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 3, Act I, sc. 4:

     Art thou obdurate, flinty, hard as steel,

     Nay, more than flint, for stone at rain relenteth?

   • 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I, lines 56–8

     ... round he throws his baleful eyes

     That witness'd huge affliction and dismay

     Mixt with obdurate pride and stedfast hate:

   • 1818, Percy Bysshe Shelley,"The Revolt of Islam", canto 4, stanza 9, lines 1486-7:

     But custom maketh blind and obdurate

     The loftiest hearts.

   • 2011 February 12, Les Roopanarine, “Birmingham 1 - 0 Stoke”, in BBC‎:

     An injury-time goal from Nikola Zigic against an obdurate Stoke side gave Birmingham back-to back Premier League wins for the first time in 14 months.

   • 2017 September 7, Ferdinand Mount, “Umbrageousness”, in London Review of Books‎:

     What Tharoor dismisses as mere ‘positive by-products’ Lalvani sees as central to the India the British left behind: the botanic gardens, the forest conservancies, the Archaeological Survey of India (brainchild of the otherwise obdurate Curzon) and the free press.

2. (obsolete) Physically hardened, toughened.
3. Hardened against feeling; hard-hearted.
   • 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Chapter 13:

     I fear the gentleman to whom Miss Amelia's letters were addressed was rather an obdurate critic.

• (stubbornly persistent in wrongdoing): hardened, hard-hearted, impertinent, intractable, unrepentant, unyielding, recalcitrant

• obduracy

• durable, duration
• endure, endurance, enduring

obdurate (third-person singular simple present obdurates, present participle obdurating, simple past and past participle obdurated)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To harden; to obdure.

• taboured

obdurāte

1. second-person plural present active imperative of obdurō