refractory

Etymology

It is from English an alteration of obsolete refractary, reshaped after adjectives ending in -ory.^[2][3][4][5] That older adjective, recorded from 1583,^[2] is from Latin refractārius (“obstinate, stubborn”),^[2][6][7] a word found in Seneca,^[2] formed with -ārius on the past participle of refringō (“to break up”),^[2][8][6] from re- (“back”) and frangō (“to break”), from Proto-Indo-European *bhreg- (“to break”).^[6] Etymonline also records an earlier refractorious, from the 1550s.^[6] The heat-resisting sense can be compared with New Latin refractārius in that use in 1739 and French réfractaire in 1762, and the physiological sense follows the same French adjective in Marey's “Physiologie expérimentale” of 1876.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Stubborn, unmanageable, of a disposition or of actions: the first record is Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida (1609), "Most disobedient and refracturie", said of appetites.^[2][9] Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives the same year,^[5] and Etymonline the 1610s.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline reports that the idea behind the Latin word is said to be "breaking back" every attempt to enforce obedience.^[6] From about 1615 the adjective was used of people and animals, and with to for refusing to comply with something, a construction now mainly literary.^[2] Johnson (1755) still defines it only as obstinate, perverse and contumacious.^[9] Medicine applied the idea of resistance to a wound or disease that would not yield to treatment, from 1634, and later to a body resisting infection, from 1843.^[2] It was applied to a substance that resists heat from 1741, and by 1839 the word was also a noun for such a material.^[2] In physiology it has described a nerve or muscle temporarily unresponsive to a repeated stimulus since 1877.^[2][4]

Timeline

• 1609 – of a disposition or actions, stubborn, unmanageable.^[2][5]
• 1614 – unwilling, with an infinitive or of (obsolete by 1649).^[2]
• 1615 – of people and animals; with to, refusing to comply.^[2]
• 1620 – noun, refractory people as a class.^[2][5]
• 1634 – of a wound or disease, hard to cure.^[2]
• 1741 – of a substance, resisting the action of heat.^[2]
• 1788 – refractive.^[2]
• 1839 – noun, a heat-resisting material.^[2]
• 1843 – resistant to an infectious disease.^[2]
• 1877 – in physiology, temporarily unresponsive to a stimulus.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Resisting control or authority; stubborn and hard to manage: a refractory mule.^[10][5][2]
2. (medicine) Of a disease or wound, not responding to treatment.^[10][5][2]
3. Of a material, able to withstand high temperatures without melting or breaking down.^[10][2]
4. (physiology) Temporarily unresponsive to a repeated stimulus, as a nerve or muscle just after stimulation.^[5][2][4]
5. (medicine, rare) Resistant to an infectious disease.^[2][4]

Noun

1. A heat-resisting material, such as fireclay or alumina, used to line furnaces and kilns.^[10][5][2]
2. (obsolete) A stubborn or rebellious person.^[5][4][2]

Word family

• refractorily
• refractoriness
• unrefractory
• refractory period

Related words

• refractive
• refraction
• refract
• refractary

Usage notes

Johnson (1755) noted that the word was by then stressed on the first syllable, while Shakespeare stressed the second.^[9][2] The orthoepist Cooper records first-syllable stress in 1687, and the OED compares the regional forms raffatory and refertory.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c 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 c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins