unruly
Americanadjective
adjective
Related Words
Unruly, intractable, recalcitrant, refractory describe persons or things that resist management or control. Unruly suggests persistently disorderly behavior or character in persons or things: an unruly child, peevish and willful; wild, unruly hair. Intractable suggests in persons a determined resistance to all attempts to guide or direct them, in things a refusal to respond to attempts to shape, improve, or modify them: an intractable social rebel; a seemingly intractable problem in logistics. recalcitrant and refractory imply not only a lack of submissiveness but also an open, often violent, rebellion against authority or direction. Recalcitrant, the stronger of the two terms, suggests a stubborn and absolute noncompliance: a recalcitrant person, openly contemptuous of all authority. Refractory implies active, mulish disobedience, but leaves open the possibility of eventual compliance: refractory students, resisting efforts to interest them in their studies.
Other Word Forms
- unruliness noun
Etymology
Origin of unruly
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English unruely, equivalent to un- un- 1 + ruly, ruely “governable, controllable”; rule, -y 1
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.
I know how it’ll sound if I try: I’ll look like a crazy teenager while he looks the picture of a concerned father, the victim of his unruly teenage daughter.
From Literature
It was Bell Labs’ responsibility, in other words, to create technologies for designing, expanding and improving an unruly communications network of cables and microwave links and glass fibers.
The other stays raw — bright, fresh, slightly unruly.
From Salon
“June”—Anna May addressed the thick-set older woman with unruly brown hair poking out from under her hat—“this is my friend Ruby Chan.”
From Literature
He studied us now out of faded blue eyes in a way that let us know we weren’t the first unruly cadets he’d ever dealt with, and we most certainly wouldn’t be his last.
From Literature
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.
