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If you acquiesce to something, you allow it to happen by doing what someone wants without putting up a struggle or voicing your own concerns.
If you are amenable to doing something, you willingly accept it without arguing.
Antipathy is a strong feeling of dislike or hostility towards someone or something.
If someone is complaisant, they are willing to please others and do what they want without complaining.
A compliant person is readily willing to do what is asked of them.
Conciliation is a process intended to end an argument between two groups of people.
If you have a contrary opinion or act in that fashion, you oppose or go against an existing opinion or fashion.
If you are contrite, you are very sorry or ashamed that you have done something bad.
Someone who is contumacious is purposely stubborn, contrary, or disobedient.
If you behave with deference towards someone, you show them respect and accept their opinions or decisions, especially because they have an important position.
If you demur, you delay in doing or mildly object to something because you don’t really want to do it.
A dissident is someone who disagrees publicly with a government, especially in a country where this is not allowed.
Something that is divisive is likely to cause arguments between people.
An animal or person that is docile is not aggressive; rather, they are well-behaved, quiet, and easy to control.
Something that is formative shapes or influences the growth of something else.
If someone is fractious, they are easily upset or annoyed over unimportant things.
Someone who is incorrigible has bad habits or does bad things and is unlikely to ever change; this word is often used in a humorous way.
Intractable problems, situations, or people are very difficult or impossible to deal with.
An intransigent person is stubborn; thus, they refuse to change their ideas or behavior, often in a way that seems unreasonable.
Obeisance is respect and obedience shown to someone or something, expressed by bowing or some other humble gesture.
If someone is being obsequious, they are trying so hard to please someone that they lack sincerity in their actions towards that person.
An obstinate person refuses to change their mind, even when other people think they are being highly unreasonable.
Someone who is obstreperous is noisy, unruly, and difficult to control.
A person who is plastic can be easily influenced and molded by others.
A pliant person can be easily influenced or controlled by others.
To propitiate another is to calm or soothe them; it is often giving someone what they want so that everyone is happy.
Recidivism is a falling back into an undesirable activity, especially crime, after one has temporarily stopped doing so.
Refractory people deliberately don’t obey someone in authority and so are difficult to deal with or control.
A feeling of resignation is one of submission, acceptance without protest, or an unresisting attitude.
If you say that someone is servile, you don’t respect them because they are too obedient, too agreeable, and too willing to do anything for another person.
If you are subservient, you are too eager and willing to do what other people want and often put your own wishes aside.
An unctuous person acts in an overly deceptive manner that is obviously insincere because they want to convince you of something.
An untoward situation is something that is unfavorable, unfortunate, inappropriate, or troublesome.
If you act in a wayward fashion, you are very headstrong, independent, disobedient, unpredictable, and practically unmanageable.
Adj.
recalcitrant
ri-KAL-si-truhnt
Context
Despite losing his allowance, his car, and his cell phone, Henry continued to defy his parents in recalcitrant or highly stubborn rebellion. He stayed out too late, told lies, and disobeyed their wishes in a continuing rush of recalcitrant and disobedient behavior. Henry’s mom took his recalcitrant or resistant ways with calm, knowing that high school was a hard time, and that her willful son was bound to struggle with authority figures.
Quiz:Try again!
What might happen to a recalcitrant student at school?
They would likely get low grades due to missing so many days of class.
They would likely be punished for being disobedient and defiant.
They would likely get a low participation grade since they are so shy.
Calculus Trance Whenever I go to calculus the material is so hard that my brain falls into a trance, so now I'm recalcitrant to attend class.
Examples
Sure, Karelin may have carried a refrigerator up eight flights of stairs, as the story goes, but Rulon invested a lot of hours pushing and tugging recalcitrant 1,000-pound cows.
—
Sports Illustrated
So is there a place in the collective cultural memory for a recalcitrant, unrepentant dreamer, a man who was too suspicious of commercialism, too private, ever to demand his place in musical history?
—
Rolling Stone
Ordered by his commander to punch the recalcitrant man repeatedly in the stomach to make him talk, Morgan writes, 'something happened to me.
—
Harper's Magazine
This year, 'no one expects the president to get less recalcitrant on spending,' said Stan Collender, a budget expert and managing director of Qorvis Communications.
—
USA Today
When one is acting in a recalcitrant fashion, one is in a “state of tracking back,” that is, one does not want to “track (or move) forward” by agreeing with what someone wants, but rather one “tracks back” and so symbolically refuses the requests of another.
Word Theater
YouTube: Funny Cats Compilation This cat is being really recalcitrant.
The panel shows a small video clip of either the word in actual use or a scene that represents the meaning of a word. This not only breaks up the monotony of studying words but also provides another avenue to strengthen word meaning. Enjoy!
