REFRACTORY • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Refractory

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/rəfrˈæktəri/ Listen $Listen 'refractory'$

adjective

Refractory adj.

Obstinate in disobedience; contumacious; stubborn; unmanageable; as, a refractory child; a refractory beast. "Raging appetites that are Most disobedient and refractory."

Resisting ordinary treatment; difficult of fusion, reduction, or the like; said especially of metals and the like, which do not readily yield to heat, or to the hammer; as, a refractory ore.

Synonyms: Perverse; contumacious; unruly; stubborn; obstinate; unyielding; ungovernable; unmanageable.

noun

Refractory n.

A refractory person.

Refractoriness. (Obs.)

OPottery) A piece of ware covered with a vaporable flux and placed in a kiln, to communicate a glaze to the other articles.

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Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Refractory" Quotes from Famous Books

... nightfall, I am no true man. Here, Fangs! Fangs!" he ejaculated at the top of his voice to a ragged wolfish-looking dog, a sort of lurcher, half mastiff, half greyhound, which ran limping about as if with the purpose of seconding his master in collecting the refractory grunters; but which, in fact, from misapprehension of the swine-herd's signals, ignorance of his own duty, or malice prepense, only drove them hither and thither, and increased the evil which he seemed to design to remedy. "A devil ...

— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... expression and say that Chip "fought his way back to health" would be simply stating a fact and stating it mildly. He went about it much as he would go about gentling a refractory broncho, and with ...

— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower

... signal the switchboard operator and tell him to come and open up the booth, when an, "Are you there, Mr. Edestone?" came to him from across the wire, and caused him for the moment to forget the refractory door. ...

— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney

... mutinous disposition of his crew, maintained a serene and steady countenance, using gentle words with some, stimulating the pride and avarice of others, and threatening the refractory. ...

— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith

... correctives—voluntary idleness, and the destruction of property. The example was set by the silk-weavers of Spitalfields and Bethnal-Green, who refused to work except at an increased rate of wages, and made their way by night into the shops of workmen possessed of materials belonging to the refractory masters, and destroyed them. Overawed by the combination, the masters agreed finally to pay the same wages that had been paid in 1824, although its continuation would prove ruinous to them. Similar scenes were exhibited, ...

— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

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