stubborn

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English stibourne, later stoburne and stuborn,^[2][3][4] a word of uncertain or unknown origin.^[5][3][6][7] The derivation usually suggested is from stubbe (“stump”), the source of stub, as if "immovable as a stump";^[5][2][4] the OED and Barnhart find this easy to accept for the sense but hard to justify for the form,^[5][2] and the OED rejects a proposed Old English form with the suffix “-or”, since that suffix was no longer a living suffix.^[5] Klein and Weekley accept the link with stub, comparing German störrig (“stubborn”), from Storren (“tree stump”).^[8][9] According to Liberman, the association with stub is folk etymology: the only certain cognate is Icelandic tybbinn (“obstinate”), which shares the root with s-mobile and perhaps originally meant "swollen", while the English ending “-orn” remains unexplained.^[10] Etymonline notes that the OED and Liberman both doubt the connection with stub.^[11] Older guesses included Minsheu's “stout-born” and a derivation from “stub-horn”, which Johnson (1755) mentions.^[10][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Unyielding and obstinate: about 1386, in Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Prologue, where Dame Alice describes herself in youth as "stibourne and strong and ioly as a pye".^[5][11][2] A man named Simon Stubourne appears in a Bedfordshire subsidy roll of 1332.^[11] According to the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English, the earliest sense was "untameable, implacable",^[7][6] and Weekley notes that the original sense was often stronger, such as "ruthless".^[9]

Semantic evolution

The sense of things that resist treatment or are hard to manage, such as diseases, is recorded from about 1518,^[5][11] and "hard, stiff, rigid", of material things, from 1577; this is now used only of wood or stone.^[5] Johnson (1755) defined the word as obstinate, inflexible and contumacious, and noted that no obvious etymology appeared.^[12] The saying facts are stubborn things is found in that exact form in 1717, after similar phrases in 1707 and 1711.^[11][9] Keats used stubborn as a verb, to harden, in Hyperion (1820).^[5][4] In West Yorkshire dialect the adjective could describe stiff, bristly hair, and in Surrey a bushy plant.^[13]

Timeline

• 1332 – the surname Stubourne.^[11]
• c. 1386 – stibourne, obstinate (Chaucer).^[5][2]
• c. 1449 – the spellings styborne, stuborn.^[2]
• ?1518 – of things: hard to treat or manage.^[5]
• 1577 – hard, stiff.^[5]
• 1717 – facts are stubborn things.^[11]
• 1820 – verb: to make stubborn (Keats).^[5][4]

Modern meaning

Adjective

1. Unwilling to change one's mind or to give way; obstinate: The stubborn child refused to put on her coat.
2. Showing determination; persistent and dogged: The defenders put up a stubborn resistance.
3. Hard to deal with, remove or cure: a stubborn stain.

Word family

• stubbornly
• stubbornness
• unstubborn

Related words

• stub
• obstinate
• headstrong
• mulish

Usage notes

Dictionary.com distinguishes stubborn (an inborn resistance to persuasion), obstinate (persistent, often unreasonable adherence to one's own course) and dogged (tenacity in keeping on despite difficulties).^[14]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b Liberman, Anatoly (2008), An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
11. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
12. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
14. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House