Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Obstinately disobedient or rebellious; insubordinate.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Headstrong; insolent; hence, resisting legitimate authority, whether civil, ecclesiastical, military, or parental; stubbornly disobedient or rebellious: as, a contumacious child.
- Specifically In law, wilfully disobedient to a lawful order of a judicial or legislative body, or showing wilful contempt of its authority. Synonyms Stubborn, Refractory, etc. (see
obstinate ), proud, headstrong, unmanageable, ungovernable, unruly, wilful, perverse.
Wiktionary
- adj. Contemptuous of authority; willfully disobedient; rebellious.
- adj. law Willfully disobedient to the summons or orders of a court.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Exhibiting contumacy; contemning authority; obstinate; perverse; stubborn; disobedient.
- adj. (Law) Willfully disobedient to the summons or orders of a court.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. wilfully obstinate; stubbornly disobedient
Etymologies
- From Latin contumāx ("stubborn, obstinate") (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Simply put, like whoever posted the diatribe "Traitors to Democracy, Traitors to America, Enemies of Democracy," you show your kinship to the Jacobins of the French Revolution; desirousness of murdering, oops, I should say liberating with extreme prejudice those who are "contumacious" of your socialist/fascist agenda.”
“She sighed especially over "contumacious"; it was so beautifully long.”
“She was in the act of fixing up "contumacious," and making it a little more un-English if possible, when the poke awoke her to her surroundings.”
“[FN#67] Márid (lit. "contumacious" from the Heb. root Marad to rebel, whence "Nimrod" in late Semitic) is one of the tribes of the Jinn, generally but not always hostile to man.”
“I believe she was pronounced 'contumacious' by the”
“The near neighborhood of the place was chosen, in order to deprive her of all plea of ignorance; and as she made no answer to the citation, either by herself or proxy, she was declared "contumacious;" and the primate proceeded to the examination of the cause.”
The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. From Henry VII. to Mary
“By this I knew the hills were still mad, and deeply fissured, and that nesting within remained the contumacious hybrids.”
“For someone who has basked in the glory of being called a military hero for many years, McCain's contumacious behavior makes him so much less of a man than many of the LGBT troops who are currently serving their country.”
“Africa's reform process has been stalled by contumacious chicanery, willful deception, and strong-arm tactics.”
“Gates's behavior may have been contumacious, rude, discourteous, name it.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘contumacious’.
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GRE 2014
abase, abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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important
shamanism, consol, sanguine, iffy, affinity, concatenation, honed, innumberable, aiden, inexorable, vet, suss and 176 more...
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sdamle1
echt
echt, apocalypse, resurgence, forthright, logorrhea, mercurial, torrid, exorcise, obscure, intrusive, morose, vindictive and 94 more...
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Iaan
dirigisme, dystopia, cacotopia, ex ante, veritable, indefatigable, curmudgeon, desultory, antediluvian, transmogrify, pendent, elongate and 269 more...
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Dominant/Submissive
abusive, adamant, autocratic, bossy, bullheaded, bumptious, certain, cock-a-hoop, cocksure, cocky, commanding, compelling and 189 more...
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GRE Barron's 800
zealot, wistful, welter, wary, whimsical, warranted, vortex, vivisection, volatile, vitiate, viscous, visage and 787 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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words 1
Traduce, Ramify, precipitous, rapture, adumbrate, knell, smolder, vagary, choleric, sibylline, hypocritical, jejune and 135 more...
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From reading
Collected from reading
venerate, reprobate, reticent, adoration, ethereal, ephemeral, equivocal, contumacious, heinous, solicitous, agnostic, aberration and 335 more...
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phrontistery - c
from phrontistery.info
czardas, cytometer, cytology, cytheromania, cystoscope, cystolith, cyrenaic, cypseline, cyprinoid, cyphonism, cynophobia, cytogenesis and 1298 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2046 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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Philosophic , etymology
every major discipline has uniquely developed esoteric nomenclature to facilitate interdisciplinary dissemination
quale , qualia, elegy, tacet, lexicon, annunciate, caste, eros, contrive, purlicue, irony, venacular, dilapidate and 567 more...
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unyielding
refractory, unmanageable, ungovernable, obstinate, contumacious, stubborn, unyielding, unruly, perverse, refractoriness, inanimates, contrary and 12 more...
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If You Can't Say Anything Nice
Negative attributes or actions.
biased, cantankerous, caustic, contumacious, dilatory, disdain, duplicitous, fastidious, fractious, glower, haughty, imperious and 22 more...
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Sept 2012
apoplectic, ataraxia, belletristic, apotheosis, dominatrix, contumacious, litigious, provincial, abscess, pillory, patina, dialectic and 1 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for contumacious.
bilby "His Honour was, of course, firmly of the view that the appellant's mental state was such that she was capable of participating in the trial had she chosen to do so," he (Durward) said.
"On this view, what is said to be the product of an unsoundness of mind can be seen to be the conduct of a contumacious litigant in defiance of the authority of the court.
- David Barbeler, Bum-flashing lecturer's appeal dismissed, theage.com.au, 13 Oct 2009. Oct 13, 2009