obstinacy

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English obstinacie,^[2][3] borrowed from Medieval Latin obstinātia, also obstinācia,^{[4][2][5][6][7][8]} recorded from the 7th century and frequent in British sources from the 12th.^[4] It is formed on Latin obstinātus (“resolute, stubborn”), the past participle of obstinō (“to persist, set one's mind on”),^[4][2][6] which is formed from ob- (“by”) and a form related to stō (“to stand”),^[4][2] from Proto-Indo-European *sta- (“to stand, make or be firm”).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Stubbornness, inflexibility of purpose: before 1393, in Gower's Confessio Amantis,^[4][3] the only use in Gower.^[3] Etymonline gives the sense as "hardness of heart, inflexibility of temper or purpose" from the late 14th century.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its main sense since Gower, usually with a critical tone.^[4] From 1467 it could also name a single act of stubbornness, or something stubborn;^[4] the Shorter Oxford dates this use to the early 17th century, usually in the plural.^[7] Johnson (1755) derived it from French obstination and Latin obstinātiō, and defined it as stubbornness, contumacy and persistency.^[9] From 1808 medical writers used it for a disease's persistence and resistance to treatment, a rare sense;^[4] Merriam-Webster widens this to anything hard to cure or put down.^[6]

Timeline

• before 1393 – the quality of being obstinate, stubbornness.^[4]
• 1467 – an instance of stubbornness; an obstinate act.^[4]
• 1808 – in medicine, persistence of a disease after treatment.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The quality of being obstinate; firm and usually unreasonable stubbornness: His obstinacy delayed the sale of the farm by a year.^[6][10][4]
2. An obstinate act or attitude: We grew tired of their small obstinacies.^{[10][6][4][7]}
3. (medicine, rare) Of a disease or other evil, the quality of being hard to cure or subdue.^[4][6]

Related words

• obstinate
• stand

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins