stubborn

adjective

1)

you're too stubborn to admit it

Syn:

obstinate, headstrong, willful, strong-willed, pigheaded, obdurate, difficult, contrary, perverse, recalcitrant, inflexible, iron-willed, uncompromising, unbending; informal stiff-necked, bloody-minded, balky; formal pertinacious, refractory, contumacious

Ant:

compliant

2)

stubborn stains

Syn:

indelible, permanent, persistent, tenacious, resistant

••

stubborn, dogged, intractable, obdurate, obstinate, pertinacious, perverse

If you're the kind of person who takes a stand and then refuses to back down, your friends might say you have a stubborn disposition, a word that implies an innate resistance to any attempt to change one's purpose, course, or opinion. People who are stubborn by nature exhibit this kind of behavior in most situations, but they might be obstinate in a particular instance (a stubborn child, he was obstinate in his refusal to eat vegetables). Obstinate implies sticking persistently to an opinion, purpose, or course of action, especially in the face of persuasion or attack. While obstinate is usually a negative term, dogged can be either positive or negative, implying both tenacious, often sullen, persistence (dogged pursuit of a college degree, even though he knew he would end up in the family business) and great determination (dogged loyalty to a cause). Obdurate usually connotes a stubborn resistance marked by harshness and lack of feeling (obdurate in ignoring their pleas), while intractable means stubborn in a headstrong sense and difficult for others to control or manage (intractable pain). No matter how stubborn you are, you probably don't want to be called pertinacious, which implies persistence to the point of being annoying or unreasonable (a pertinacious panhandler).