Word of the Day Archive
Sunday April 15, 2007
refractory \rih-FRAK-tuh-ree\ , adjective:
1. Stubbornly disobedient; unmanageable.
2. Resisting ordinary treatment or cure.
3. Difficult to melt or work; capable of enduring high temperature.
It's a head shot of Lucien Bouchard peering out of the dark, openmouthed, teeth showing, eyes glittering and appearing not to have shaved in a week. In another age, the shot might have been held up to a refractory kid with the warning, "The boogeyman will get you if you don't watch out."
-- George Bain, "Whose Reality?", Time, October 13, 1997
And even those most refractory infections of all, those caused by viruses--formerly dismissed as untreatable because viruses disappeared into the inner labyrinths of the living cells, merging into the very genomes--were becoming amenable to early treatments.
-- Frank Ryan M.D., Virus X
Bauxite is mined in only a few places. It is used to make aluminum, iron, copper and dozens of refractory products such as the bricks used to line blast furnaces.
-- Robert Goodrich, "Melvin Price Support Center's Bauxite Will Be Sold", St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 10, 2000
Refractory comes from Latin refractarius, "stubborn," from refragari, "to oppose, to withstand, to thwart."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for refractory
