restiveness

[res-tiv]

adjective

impatient of control, restraint, or delay, as persons; restless; uneasy.

refractory; stubborn.

refusing to go forward; balky: a restive horse.

Origin:
1375–1425; rest² + -ive; replacing late Middle English restif stationary, balking < Old French: inert

Related forms

res·tive·ly, adverb

res·tive·ness, noun

Can be confused: restful, restive.

Synonyms
1. nervous, unquiet. 2. recalcitrant, disobedient, obstinate.

Antonyms
1. patient, quiet. 2. obedient, tractable.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
Cite This Source

Link To restiveness

00:10

00:09

00:08

00:07

00:06

00:05

00:04

00:03

00:02

00:01

Restiveness is always a great word to know.

So is bezoar. Does it mean:

a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison.

a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal.

LEARN MORE UNUSUAL WORDS WITH WORD DYNAMO...

Collins

World English Dictionary

restive (ˈrɛstɪv)

—*adj*
1.	restless, nervous, or uneasy
2.	impatient of control or authority

[C16: from Old French restif balky, from rester to remain]

'restively

—*adv*

'restiveness

—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Word Dynamo By Dictionary.com

Searching for restiveness? How many words do you actually know?

FIND OUT

Use Dictionary.com faster without ads >>

Matching Quote

"On starlight nights I used to pace up and down those long, cold streets, scowling at the little, sleeping houses on either side, with their storm-windows and covered back porches. They were flimsy shelters, most of them poorly built of light wood, with spindle porch-posts horribly mutilated by the turning-lathe. Yet for all their frailness, how much jealousy and envy and unhappiness some of them managed to contain! The life that went on in them seemed to me made up of evasions and negations; shifts to save cooking, to save washing and cleaning, devices to propitiate the tongue of gossip. This guarded mode of existence was like living under a tyranny. People's speech, their voices, their very glances, became furtive and repressed. Every individual taste, every natural appetite, was bridled by caution. The people asleep in those houses, I thought, tried to live like the mice in their own kitchens; to make no noise, to leave no trace, to slip over the surface of things in the dark."

-Willa Cather