stubborn

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   not responding to treatment

   a stubborn infection

2. 2
   adj

   Refusing to move or to change one's opinion; obstinate; firmly resisting; persistent in doing something.

   People are pretty stubborn about their political beliefs, so why bother arguing?

3. 3
   adj

   Physically stiff and inflexible; not easily melted or worked.

   1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London Under his hand a stubborn latch sprung noisily […]

4. 4
   noun

   Stubbornness.

   But I have to say that one thing you inherited from your mother is a whole lot of stubborn.

5. 5
   noun

   Ellipsis of stubborn disease (“a disease of citrus trees”).

   With evidence that the causal agent of stubborn is spread by insects, control or prevention of this disease will prove more difficult than formerly thought to be.

6. 6
   adj

   tenaciously unwilling or marked by tenacious unwillingness to yield

Etymology

From Middle English stiborne, stibourne, stoburn, stoburne, styburne, stiborn, of uncertain origin; one hypothesis is that it may be from Old English *stybbor, from Old English stybb (“a stump, stub”) + -or (adjective-formation suffix, as in bitor, whence English bitter).