Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Tending to irritate; repellent: "He became rebarbative, prickly, spiteful” ( Robert Craft).
Wiktionary
- adj. Irritating, repellent.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. serving or tending to repel
Etymologies
- From French rébarbatif, rébarbative ("repellent”, “disagreeable"), from Middle French rebarber ("to oppose”, “to stand up to") (from Old French re- + barbe ("barb”, “beard") (from Latin barba ("beard")) ≅ literally, “to stand beard to beard against”) + -atif ("-ative"). (Wiktionary)
- French rébarbatif, from Old French, from (se) rebarber, to confront : re-, re- + barbe, beard (from Latin barba; see bhardh-ā- in Indo-European roots). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“He claims that in his crime fiction he tones down his trademark use of obscure words, but he slips "rebarbative" into the essay.”
“Art Resource, NY Sixth-century mosaic of the Nile River with a crocodile, a duck and lotus flowers So why has this remarkable empire for so long been perceived as abhorrent and rebarbative, when not being dismissed?”
“It is puzzling and rebarbative, but once you get into its mindset, then it can have a curious grip on the imagination.”
“Susan Hertog's "Dangerous Ambition" Ballantine, 493 pages, $30 is about two "New Women" of America and their ever-evolving relationship—one hesitates to say friendship about people so naturally rebarbative—over many decades of the 20th century.”
“Worse still, the piece required Hahn, the epitome of refinement, to make coarse, rebarbative sounds on her instrument and Lisitsa to bang out "chords" with her flat palm.”
The Washington Post: Virtuoso violinist Hilary Hahn holds her audience rapt but adds some irritants
“The late Cyril Cusack, a wonderful actor but a rebarbative spirit, used to recount a meeting with Beckett about a possible production of Waiting for Godot in which Cusack told the author that the play is nothing more than a moan of Protestant angst.”
“Her ultimate fate was so tragic that it softens whatever harsh feelings one might have about her earlier, rebarbative views.”
“The festival would scarcely be recognisable without one rebarbative example of the avant garde.”
“Amid such gothic grimness, this glacier of a work describes the struggle between the nascent civilization of the warriors, as expressed in their traditions, and the rebarbative, retarding, and retaliatory effects of nature, embodied by the fiend.”
“I'm sullying the purity of my rebarbative blog with praising notices like this.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘rebarbative’.
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phrontistery-r
from phrontistery.info
raad, rabanna, rabbet, rabble, Rabelaisian, rabic, racemation, raceme, racemiferous, rach, rachidian, rachiometer and 514 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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Words to Remember
apodyopsis, apophenia, aposiopesis, meiosis, rebarbative, compline, comity, farouche, apophasis, averruncate, apodictic, carriwitchet and 3 more...
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Do More Than Hate
A list of words for describing dislike, reproval or criticism.
belabor, malevolent, reprobate, ire, anger, rage, fury, choler, indignance, grame, scorn, geck and 23 more...
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eg's list
lexicolony
nefandous, ineffable, ultracrepidate, haecceity, quiddity, noumenon, hypokeimenon, extemporaneous, theomastix, caducity, niddering, tellurian and 16 more...
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ymmez22's Words
despotic, fiefdom, demagogue, vignette, chavvy, esoteric, stalwarts, unpalatable, eradicated, rapacious, repugnant, zeitgeist and 89 more...
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difficult words
ordure, tatterwallop, callipygian, odious, colophon, cynosure, hardener, emollience, valetudinarian, demonym, volage, polysemantic and 278 more...
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Chennessy's Words
philistine, messianic, dyad, cult, bourgeois, blot, ploy, polyglot, lingua franca, cumbersome, lumber, petit-bourgeois and 446 more...
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To Learn
enervate, redolent, distaff, approbation, arrogate, bonhomie, palliate, calumny, panoply, contumacious, edify, dyspeptic and 188 more...
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Faves
nepenthe, cupidity, anodyne, obdurate, doleful, obsolescent, quale, piquant, velleity, inchoate, disport, facile and 366 more...
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List Erine
cool mint antiseptic
shalom, cattywampus, bourgeoisie, aerophile, traverse, grotto, epicurean, ex cathedra, nautilus, epitaph, lathe, continuum and 753 more...
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Coruscatingly what?
List of adjectival terms, from aggressive to zippered, paired in printed materials with the adverb coruscatingly, identified by a simple query to Google Search (Books).
...propaedeutic...aggressive, angry, articulate, astringent, aware, beautiful, big, blinding, bright, brilliant, brutal, cerebral and 93 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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Words I will probably never use
décolleté, pendragon, amerce, viviparous, dragoon, brigand, outlaw, outlawry, lugubrious, boor, contretemps, decrepit and 167 more...
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Daily
Daily Vocab List
lull, pious, lurid, objurgate, insurgent, lewd, patio, onus, lampoon, geisha, larceny, maim and 206 more...
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Word Gems
foist, coercion, abecedism, abiectic, abigeus, abiogenesis, ablaut, thunderstruck, dumbfounded, flabbergasted, filagree, blotto and 196 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for rebarbative.
bluetangle "Still, everyone appeared to be extremely nice, except that that Dr. Greenfield man was a trifle rebarbative. (This was a word which Toby had recently learnt at school and could not now conceive of doing without.)" - Iris Murdoch, The Bell Jun 16, 2008