Stubborn

//ˈstʌbɚn// adj, noun, slang

adj, noun, slang ·Common ·Middle school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Stubbornness. informal, uncountable

    "But I have to say that one thing you inherited from your mother is a whole lot of stubborn."

  2. 2
    Ellipsis of stubborn disease (“a disease of citrus trees”). abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis, uncountable

    "With evidence that the causal agent of stubborn is spread by insects, control or prevention of this disease will prove more difficult than formerly thought to be."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Refusing to move or to change one's opinion; obstinate; firmly resisting; persistent in doing something.

    "People are pretty stubborn about their political beliefs, so why bother arguing?"

  2. 2
    Of materials: physically stiff and inflexible; not easily melted or worked.
Adjective
  1. 1
    tenaciously unwilling or marked by tenacious unwillingness to yield wordnet
  2. 2
    not responding to treatment wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
bullheadeddeterminedhardheadedobdurateobstinatepertinacious

Antonyms

All antonyms
docile

Example

More examples

"Your argument is not any more convincing than that of my stubborn father."

Etymology

From Middle English stiborne, stibourne, stoburn, stoburne, styburne, stiborn, of uncertain origin; one hypothesis is that it may be from Old English *stybbor, from Old English stybb (“a stump, stub”) + -or (adjective-formation suffix, as in bitor, whence English bitter).

Related phrases

mule-stubbornstubborn as a mulestubborn up

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.