contumacious
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of contumacious
Explanation
That ornery horse that keeps heading back to the barn, no matter how much you coax and pull and try to convince him to stay on the trail? He's showing you his contumacious side, meaning he's stubbornly resisting authority. You might hear the word contumacious used in a courtroom to describe an uncooperative witness or someone who willfully disobeys an order given by the court. If you have a glove compartment full of unpaid parking tickets, when you finally land in court your disobedient behavior may cause the judge to tell you that you're a contumacious lout. You'll not only have to pay the tickets, you'll also be slapped with a big fine, and you'll never be contumacious again.
Vocabulary lists containing contumacious
Into the Wild
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Resistance is Futile: Synonyms for "Stubborn"
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Challenge, List 10
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He urged Merchan to warn Trump “that his recent conduct is contumacious and direct him to immediately desist.”
From Seattle Times • Mar. 29, 2024
Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who served on special counsel Bob Mueller's team, said it was "interesting" that Chutkan excused Trump's presence at the hearing "given his dangerous and contumacious social media posts."
From Salon • Aug. 8, 2023
“Mr. Donziger’s conduct was a pattern of contumacious behavior that bore out over the better part of a decade,” Preska said.
From Seattle Times • Oct. 1, 2021
Making a hard living, Australians developed into a tough, contumacious, raffish people, inveterately hostile to authority, and looking at the world with a fresh, irreverent eye.
From Time Magazine Archive
Thompson, Samel, and Swanson, however, are contumacious Alaskans with a special fondness for driving motor vehicles where motor vehicles aren’t really designed to be driven.
From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
