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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

refractory.

Obstinate and unruly; strongly opposed to something.

10 characters4 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ɹɪˈfɹæk.tə.ɹi/UK/ɹɪˈfɹæk.təɹ.i/Canada, US/ɹɪˈfɹæk.tə.ɹi/Australia/ɹəˈfɹæk.tə.ɹi/New-Zealand
  1. Obstinate and unruly; strongly opposed to something.

  2. Not affected by great heat.

  3. Resistant to treatment; not responding adequately to therapy.

  4. Incapable of registering a reaction or stimulus.

Where this word comes from

From Latin refractārius (“obstinate”), from refrāctus, past participle of refringere (“to break up”). Originally refractary, refractarie, but reanalysed after other adjectives in -ory.

noun/ɹɪˈfɹæk.tə.ɹi/UK/ɹɪˈfɹæk.təɹ.i/Canada, US/ɹɪˈfɹæk.tə.ɹi/Australia/ɹəˈfɹæk.tə.ɹi/New-Zealand
  1. A material or piece of material, such as a brick, that has a very high melting point.

  2. A plant or factory that produces such material.

Where this word comes from

From Latin refractārius (“obstinate”), from refrāctus, past participle of refringere (“to break up”). Originally refractary, refractarie, but reanalysed after other adjectives in -ory.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.