Definition of Obdurate

obdurate (transitive verb) - to harden

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How can obdurate be used in a sentence?

  1. Clearing Randall's obdurate patio on his hands and knees, Bob thinks:

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  2. It is stupefying with what obdurate obstinacy the Limpet will cling and adhere.

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  3. Young-looking for his years (he is 49), he is smiley, but also, you sense, obdurate.

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  4. I was sure it was going to shatter in my hands as I worked to coax out the obdurate cork.

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  5. I do not inveigh against high dropout rates, low test scores, or obdurate teachers 'unions.

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  6. George passed from life with the kind of obdurate resistance and strength of spirit with which he had lived.

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  7. Portugal and Ivory Coast, their next opponents, will be on their mettle as they prepare to break down an obdurate defence

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  8. Or, in the worst cases, a crumpled wad of paper with a numbered face and flapping bits of tape ricocheting off an obdurate pane.

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  9. And after all, he was a Welshman; somewhere in the tangled genealogies of his nation, this obdurate boy might be his distant kin.

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  10. If, however, Iran remained obdurate in refusing to comply with these demands, sticks would come into play in the form of sanctions.

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  11. The main plot depicts the courting of Petruchio, a gentleman of Verona, and Katherina, the headstrong, obdurate, and eponymous shrew.

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  12. I have never seen anything like the obdurate selfishness and the lack of concern for the public good that I have seen in today's Republicans.

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  13. It would be a gross understatement to say that reality proved a more complex and obdurate substance than was dreamed of in Mr. Carter's philosophy.

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  14. Portugal and Ivory Coast, their next opponents, will certainly be on their mettle as they prepare for the task of breaking down a most obdurate defence.

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  15. Most recently, he had secured favorable terms with a Ferengi art merchant, and had also obtained a lucrative deal with the notoriously obdurate Ivvitrians.

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  16. He also defended his seizure of white-owned farms, saying the program pitted the majority against the white minority he described as obdurate and backed by the British.

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  17. Geithner plainly has no patience for what he describes as the obdurate unwillingness of colleagues to subordinate their desire for superficial impact to the larger vision.

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  18. She said the LRC was extremely proud of its achievements with the community that included a victory in the Constitutional Court, against "obdurate" opposition by government.

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  19. Svevo's subject is the weakness of the will, or abulia, and how a dreamy nature has little chance up against the temptations set out by the amazing and obdurate reality of life.

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  20. The film shifts to an geologist named Tom (Jim Broadbent), then to a psychotherapist named Gerri (Ruth Sheen), who is also trying to draw some self-revelation out of the obdurate Janet.

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  21. He also defended his seizure of white-owned farms, saying the program pitted the majority against an "obdurate" racial minority which he alleged was "supported and manipulated" by Blair.

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  22. If VA Secretary Eric Shinseki decides to take on the insurers over COB, it could prove the first shot in a broader war against Big Insurance, the most obdurate opponent of universal health care.

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  23. Spain's coach has had a few days to ponder whether he should alter the balance of his midfield line-up against a Honduras team who are expected, like Switzerland, to be obdurate first and foremost.

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  24. Historian and Kennedy-crony Arthur Schlesinger Jr., recalling his days as a Harvard undergrad in the 1930s, noted that the cocktail was "supposed to reduce the most obdurate female to acquiescence."

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  25. Time was short, business urgent, and what mattered was to make such provision as was now possible to repair what had gone awry, both with threats from an obdurate brother and peril to a lost daughter.

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  26. So when catastrophe enthusiasts talk about the obdurate unreasonableness the deniers they ought to think a little harder about who started lying why they started and what they can do to clean their act up.

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  27. Just think what the ordeal must be like for less intellectually robust people, less equipped by education and rhetorical skill than they are, or than Julia Sweeney is, to argue their corner in the face of obdurate family members.

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  28. After all, it is big banks, big business, and big bailouts that have been the catalyst for rising, ambiguous, but nevertheless obdurate discontent that has tried to coalesce into a coherent party, the "Tea Party," with an identifiable platform.

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  29. Although Jay Spearing was sometimes too easily dispossessed and novice right-back Martin Kelly found himself turned by Rabotnicki's Brazilian forward Wandeir, the Macedonians largely found Martin Skrtel and Sotirios Kyrgiakos an obdurate defensive barrier.

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  30. He thrilled even now at the recollection of the Hadendowas leaping and stabbing through the breach of McNeil's zareba six miles from Suakin; he recalled the obdurate defence of the Berkshires, the steadiness of the Marines, the rallying of the broken troops.

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  31. Ultimately, an obdurate insistence on the capacity of the worldscape to function as an imaginative playground and an indifference to the actual craft of writing may lead a writer to coin a term like "the clomping foot of nerdism." posted by Hal Duncan | 6: 55 AM

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  32. Demonstrating the kind of obdurate thickness most commonly found in that foreign land known as Washington, Augusta County supervisors - five of them at least, the Gang of Six having been diminished by one - acted Wednesday in accordance with an inevitability predetermined by them.

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  33. Evidence that Harry Markopolos continually reported the Madoff fraud to obdurate SEC staffers leads one to hope that those arrogant bureaucrats who "knew better" will be disciplined at least for their dereliction and, where appropriate, charged with misprision of felonious conduct.

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  34. For verily am I already just ever so slightly weary of calling into the jungle through a bullhorn for the deeply confused, bizarrely obdurate combatants in there to come forward and step out into the open -- to enjoy the sunshine, to relax, to get a hug, to finally be at peace with an enemy who isn't even there.

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  35. In their valuation of the distribution of grace, theologians distinguish somewhat sharply between ordinary sinners (among whom they include habitual and relapsing sinners) and those sinners whose intellect is blinded, and whose heart is hardened, the so-called obdurate sinners (obcaecati et indurati, impaenitentes).

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  36. The history of the peace process has been plagued, according to this account, by unfortunate circumstances: leaders too weak to strike a deal when they wished to or too obdurate to sign one when they could; one side ready for compromise when the other was not; divisions on the Palestinian side or dysfunctional governments on the Israeli one.

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  37. When Cadfael manoeuvred his way as close as he could to the doorway of the chapter-house, it seemed that Bishop de Clinton had ceded the presidium on this occasion to the Bishop of Winchester, perhaps hopeful that so powerful a prelate would exert more influence upon obdurate minds, by virtue of his royal blood, and his prestige as recently filling the office of papal legate to the realm of England.

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Tips for Using obdurate in a Sentence

You may have an easier time writing sentences with obdurate if you know what words are likely to come before or after it, or simply what words are often found in the same sentence.

Frequent Predecessors

Words that often come before obdurate in sentences. For example: "the obdurate" or "was obdurate"

  • the
  • was
  • remained
  • and
  • most
  • an
  • more
  • were
  • so
  • of

Frequent Successors

Words that often come after obdurate in sentences. For example: "obdurate ." or "obdurate and"

  • .
  • and
  • in
  • heart
  • to
  • as
  • hearts
  • than
  • refusal
  • resistance

Associated Words

Words that aren't necessarily predecessors or successors, but are often found in the same sentence.

  • batsman
  • hms
  • convoy
  • metal
  • face
  • test
  • records

Alternate Definitions

  • obdurate (adjective) - hardened in feelings, esp. against moral or mollifying influences; unyielding; hard-hearted; stubbornly wicked
  • obdurate (adjective) - hard; harsh; rugged; rough; intractable
A sentence using obdurate