Word of the Day

Monday, April 08, 2002

recalcitrant

\rih-KAL-sih-truhnt\ , adjective;

Stubbornly resistant to and defiant of authority or restraint.

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Quotes:

If they lingered too long, Clarice hurried them along in the same annoyed way she rushed recalcitrant goats through the gate.

-- Kaye Gibbons, On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon

As Mr. Lincoln and his Union generals insisted on unconditional surrender, the end of slavery, and the specter of an egalitarian nation where race and class were in theory to be subordinate ideas, so recalcitrant Southerners by the summer of 1864 dug in deeper for their Armageddon to come.

-- Victor Davis Hanson, The Soul Of Battle

This recalcitrant fellow was the only dissenter in an otherwise unanimous recommendation.

-- Sherwin B. Nuland, "Indoctrinology", New Republic, February 19, 2001

Origin:

Recalcitrant derives from Latin recalcitrare, "to kick back," from re-, "back" + calcitrare, "to strike with the heel, to kick," from calx, calc-, "the heel."