Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Uneasily impatient under restriction, opposition, criticism, or delay.
- adj. Resisting control; difficult to control.
- adj. Refusing to move. Used of a horse or other animal.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Unwilling to go or to move forward; stopping; balky; obstinate; stubborn. Compare def. 5.
- Not easily moved or worked; stiff.
- Being at rest; being less in motion.
- Impatient under restraint or opposition; recalcitrant.
- Refusing to rest or stand still; restless: said especially of horses.
Wiktionary
- adj. Impatient under delay, duress, or control.
- adj. Resistant of control; stubborn.
- adj. Refusing to move, especially in a forward direction.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Unwilling to go on; obstinate in refusing to move forward; stubborn; drawing back.
- adj. obsolete Inactive; sluggish.
- adj. Impatient under coercion, chastisement, or opposition; refractory.
- adj. Uneasy; restless; averse to standing still; fidgeting about; -- applied especially to horses.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. being in a tense state
- adj. impatient especially under restriction or delay
Etymologies
- Middle English restif, stationary, from Old French, from rester, to remain, from Latin restāre, to keep back : re-, re- + stāre, to stand; see stā- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Hamedan, 200 miles (340 kilometers) west of Tehran, is not known as a restive area, but it is close to Kurdish area of Iran that has witnessed occasional clashes between Kurdish rebels and security forces over the past years.”
“She came into the club room one evening in time to hear the president call the restive members to order with the statement, "You might just as well keep quiet for she is bound to finish it, and the quicker she gets to reading, the longer time we'll have for dancing.”
“But if we found wickedness in it -- vice, as we rightly call it -- if it became restive, that is, rebellious and self-willed, then we should punish it indeed.”
“A widely circulated tweet from the current uprising, which refers to the restive city of Homs, makes the point: "Homs 2011 = Hama 1982, but slowly, slowly.”
“Hamedan, 340km west of Tehran, is not known as a restive area, but it is close to Kurdish area of Iran that has witnessed occasional clashes between Kurdish rebels and security forces over the past years.”
“Heavy shelling and bombardment rocked Somalias restive capital Mogadishu on Sunday, claiming the lives of at least 14 people Drag to Playlist”
“Hamedan, 200 miles west of Tehran, is not known as a restive area, but it is close to a”
“The New York Times ran an article on Sunday claiming that after a long period of dormancy, the "anti-war" movement was getting "restive" and planned to do some actions in”
“Military chaplains will reassure the troops of their sacred duty to keep dropping bombs from midnight skies on "restive" Iraqi villages, and never make it public.”
“12.21.2009 Heavy shelling and bombardment rocked Somalias restive capital Mogadishu on Sunday, claiming the lives of at least 14 people”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘restive’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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gre
municipal, whit, dissembler, berate, liberally, embellish, dissimilitude, histrionics, flamboyance, bombastic, bovine, calumny and 142 more...
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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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EN-HU - important words for a HU inte...
Words only (I left out the expressions) from Geza Kerenyi's EN-HU interpreters' dictionary. Most of them pose some difficulty when interpreted between HU and EN in either or both directions.
abalone, abrasive, abstractionist, abstruse, abysmal, academia, accessibility, accessible, acclimate, accolade, accompanist, achiever and 1469 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 2053 more...
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cicatrix
scar tissue
minatory, naira, Cluniac, embracive, prolix, hierophant, timorous, adduce, veracious, dysphoric, sang-froid, vitiate and 503 more...
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GRE
trope, surreptitious, tenet, insular, munificent, exegesis, limpid, acerbic, litany, cupidity, restive, protract and 105 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1901 more...
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Restless
How can you stop when your feet say go?
hyperideation, unquiet, unpeaceful, cabin fever, space-hunger, restlessness, inquietude, wanrufe, restiveness, restive, champ at the bit, fidgetiness and 28 more...
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magoosh1
aberration, aboveboard, abysmal, ace, affable, aghast, alacrity, ambiguous, ambivalent, ameliorate, amenable, amiable and 222 more...
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GRE Reference
A list of words unfamiliar to me that I have repeatedly encountered in GRE question sets.
parochial, clique, salacious, aegis, ostracize, conceited, sacrilegious, inane, serendipity, gourmand, polemic, tenuous and 138 more...
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Week 1, Day 1
ignominy, marquee, deter, chariot, stern, perfidy, treacherous, insolent, presumptuous, banish, dubious, livid and 133 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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Phantonyms
"A word that means the opposite of another is an antonym; a word that looks as if it means one thing but means quite another could be called a phantonym, and warrants wariness."
--Jack...noisome, fulsome, disinterested, fortuitous, enervate, penultimate, presently, restive, simplistic, enormity
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newGRE
mostly from magoosh
imbue, verge on, nonchalant, deliberate, timorous, futile, provisional, dissect, checked, tinged, alluring, visionary and 1046 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for restive.
myth17 Better not to get restive for delayed food servings. Aug 4, 2012
rolig Though restless and restive are close in meaning, I think. It's only that with "restive" there is the element of straining at the bit, trying to throw off control. In its origins, from the Latin restare, "to remain", it referred to a horse that refused to budge. That just stayed there, when you tried to make it move, and this led to the meaning "rebellious, disobedient, resisting control". Dec 1, 2007
charlie Often used incorrectly to mean restless. Dec 9, 2006