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Refractory   /rəfrˈæktəri/   Listen
Refractory

adjective
1.
Not responding to treatment.  Synonym: stubborn.  "A refractory case of acne" , "Stubborn rust stains"
2.
Temporarily unresponsive or not fully responsive to nervous or sexual stimuli.
3.
Stubbornly resistant to authority or control.  Synonyms: fractious, recalcitrant.  "A refractory child"



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"Refractory" Quotes from Famous Books



... footwear), food and beverages, metals and metal manufactures, chemicals, shipbuilding, automobiles, machine tools, tourism, clay and refractory products, footwear, pharmaceuticals, ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... Substitute".[267] It is quite evident, however, that this reconciliation, inspired by fear of the anger of the Privy Council, could not be permanent. Soon the Council, under the leadership of Captain Matthews, who had long since forfeited Harvey's favor, was as refractory ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... not John's way. He led the refractory horse, settled him comfortably under a tree, and gave him in charge to a small boy. Then he bounded back across the road, and was up the steps to my side in ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... beautiful Katherine—Mermet is refractory; she—it won't stand up in the vase; it has a crooked stem, lops over dejectedly and needs doctoring," Sadie observed, demurely, as she held the flower up to view. "But"—with 'a sly smile—"I reckon a little skillful surgery will straighten ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... For this purpose he summoned, with the authority of a minister of war, all persons capable of bearing arms up to forty years of age to take active service, and despatched them into the field; he imposed war-taxes, and terrified the tardy and refractory with threats of punishment. Every force was put in motion; all France was ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall

... held fast; the spear-head snapped in two. I tried another, with the same result; a third, to fail again. There were no more. The most convenient thing remaining was a queer, heavy-headed, sharp-edged hatchet. This I took, brought the sharp edge down with all my force upon the refractory flap. The hatchet went through,—before I had done with it, it was ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... her gossip, Madelaine Manget, and she gives at the same time a pat to a refractory chicken. "Nicolas looks too hard at Marie Famette. Ma foi! there are men in the manger as well as dogs. If Monsieur Leon wants Marie to be for his eyes only, why does he not ask for her and marry her, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various

... them. Nettie's haste and peremptoriness were mixed, if it must be told, with a little resentment against the world in general. She had ceased being sad—she was roused and indignant. By the time she had subdued the refractory children, and disposed of them for the night, those vast Australian boxes, which they had brought with them across the seas, were placed in the little hall, under the pale light of the lamp, ready for the process of packing, into which Nettie ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... fear whatever for Benjie; for the blackguard vermin, though he could not manage the refractory horse, stuck on his seat like a monkey. Solomon and Benjie scrambled through the ford with little inconvenience, and resumed their gallop on the ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... sight. He mounted Streak and began to ride toward the camp, for he felt that Carter's death had resulted from an accident. One explanation was that a stray bullet had killed Carter—in the excitement of a stampede the men were apt to shoot wildly at refractory steers. ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer

... been put out of business many years ago by the development of iron-making in North Jersey and Pennsylvania. An attempt was made to turn it into a wood-pulp factory; but that had failed because the refractory yellow pine was full of hard knots that refused to let themselves be ground into pulp. Now a feeble little saw-mill was running from time to time in one corner of the huge edifice; and the greater part of the river out of work was foaming ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke

... After the refractory plate-chest had been made to disgorge, Mr. Morgan had visited the drawing-room. By the time he had garnered what precious metal was there, his two capacious bags had become extremely heavy. So much so, that he almost regretted that he had not brought a friend. The reflection, ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... to declare in favor of the republic. Rewbel, infuriated at their opposition, exclaimed that he would level the city to the ground, that he should deem himself dishonored were he to waste another word on such slaves. A number of refractory persons were expelled from the city,[7] and, on the 17th of March, 1793, although three hundred and seventy of the citizens alone voted in its favor, a Teuto-Rhenish national convention, under the presidency of Hoffmann, was opened at Mayence and instantly declared in favor ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks

... good trick on him. He would kill himself to get back to dinner with her, would he? Let him. He could eat it with David and Carol, and the little Julia he so adored. Connie would take a long drive in the car all by herself, and would not be home until bedtime. She would teach that refractory Material a lesson. ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston

... him from the cloister to the camp, and he held the governments successively of Erzroom and Damascus—in the latter of which he distinguished himself by his moderation and firmness in reducing to order the refractory chiefs of the Druses, of the two great rival houses of Shahab and Maan-Oghlu. Recalled, at length, to Constantinople to assume the office of kaimakam, he had scarcely entered on his new duties when he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... accumulation in the colon. Massage is a most valuable part of the treatment. To prevent the muscles from stiffening, and to retain the suppleness of the affected parts, frequent rubbings are necessary, and the mind should be stimulated to resume its control over the refractory muscles. During an attack it is necessary to pay particular attention to diet— easily digested, nonconstipating food only. You may have to revert to a spoon diet for awhile—and, as the liability to a second attack is great during the period of recovery, special attention must be given to ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell

... take account of the state of the pituitary in estimating the normal intelligence, or influencing the abnormal or subnormal intelligence. As well will he have to consider the thyroid in the child whose conduct is refractory, even though his proficiency in his studies is excellent. And the condition of the adrenal will be ascertained in the types that tire easily, and that seem unable to make the effort necessary or desirable. ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... was said among them after that, except the commonplaces of good-nights. The next afternoon, as Marion was working out a refractory example in algebra for Gracie Dennis, she bent lower over ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden

... the end of the other cylinder. And such a job! Three pulley hooks were broken in my sight, and I believe some out of my sight. However this auxiliary end was at last got off: and the people began to act on the refractory bolt. But by this time it was getting dark and the men were leaving the dockyard, so I left, arranging that what they could do in preparation for me might be done ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy

... me; I've so concerted Matters, That I defy ev'n Fate to disappoint me. Exert thyself, and to Monelia go, Before th' assembled Chiefs in Council meet; Urge it to her, and to her Brother Torax, That should their Father prove refractory, Withdraw himself, and order his Domestics To hasten home at News of our Design; Urge it, I say, to them; Torax loves War; To linger here in Hopes of his Return, Which tell them I'll effect ere twice the Sun Has run the Circuit of his daily Race. Here they may loiter careless, range ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers

... maid, half squeaking through her nose, which was well charged with rappee, "did'nt I tell you so? I knew the fellow would not come to terms no more than will your refractory daughter. This love fairly bewitches such foolish, crack-brained youngsters. But say Mr. ——, what's your name, addressing herself to Alonzo, will love heat the oven? will love boil the pot? will love clothe the back? ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.

... or three miles they did not pay any special attention to the scenery around them; they were kept busy climbing fences and hills, and taking care of the refractory cake box, which became more and more of a burden every moment. Finally as they were descending a long wooded slope, Ned was amazed to discover that the mountains, instead of being straight ahead, ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon

... white-washed walls adorned with Scripture texts and pictures. No work, however menial, is beneath them. I have myself seen one scrubbing the stairs, and in turns they sleep on a hard straw bed on the floor, ready to rise in the night as often as a bell summons them to the aid of a suffering invalid or a refractory lunatic." ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft

... his jinrikisha under cover, and Percival had to submit to the gentle, but firm, determination of the nesan. She was small and demure, but her attitude towards him was that of a nurse towards a refractory child. She conducted him, with much sliding of screens, through several compartments, to a room at the back of the house that opened out on a tiny balcony overhanging a ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice

... been lodged in Rome; but with such external concessions to Jewish nationality as might have consulted the real interests of both parties. Administered under Jewish names, the land might have yielded a larger revenue than, as a refractory nest of insurgents, it ever did yield to the Roman exchequer; and, on the other hand, a ferocious bigotry, which was really sublime in its indomitable obstinacy, might have been humored without prejudice to the grandeur ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey

... taste everything,—that is not the best taste! I honour the refractory, fastidious tongues and stomachs, which have learned to say "I" ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche

... disorderly, and tried to make the men promise, "that if he should be discharged they would all follow him." Smeaton at once assembled the men and gave orders that such of them as had any dependence on, or attachment to, the refractory foreman, should take up his tools and follow him. Only one did so—the ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne

... globulus and possibly some oaks—shrinkage begins almost at once, thus introducing a factor at the very start of the seasoning process which makes these woods very refractory. ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner

... These six refractory gases now became a target for the experiments of a host of workers in all parts of the world. The resources of mechanical ingenuity of the time were exhausted in the effort to produce low temperatures on the one hand ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams

... and Mikran, and Berber, and Zirra. Having commenced his royal tour of inspection, he found the King of Berberistan in a state of rebellion, with his army prepared to dispute his authority. A severe battle was the consequence; but the refractory sovereign was soon compelled to retire, and the elders of the city came forward to sue for mercy and protection. After this triumph, Kaus turned towards the mountain Kaf, and visited various other countries, and in his ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... before the angry housekeeper, felt a throb of relief as Allenby strode into the room. At the moment there was nothing of the butler about him—he was Sergeant Allenby, and Mrs. Atkins was simply a refractory private. ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce

... saved millions of dollars and millions of life failures had the civilized world listened. He was speaking of delinquent girls from seventeen to twenty years old in Wapping Workhouse: "I have never yet ascertained why a refractory habit should affect the tonsils and the uvula; but I have always observed that refractories of both sexes and every grade, between a Ragged School and the Old Bailey, have one voice, in which the tonsils and uvula ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... variety, which is capable of producing the anomaly in any desired number of instances; only dependent on a favorable treatment and a judicious selection. In other cases no treatment and no selection are adequate to give a similar result, and the anomaly remains refractory despite all our endeavors to breed it. The cockscomb and the peloric fox-glove are widely known instances of permanent anomalies, and others will be dealt with in future lectures. On the other hand I have often tried in vain to win an anomalous ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries

... up on the outskirts. There were neighborly rows of houses that had wide porches where the heads of families received their neighbors, the men discussing the state of the country or their own business, the women comparing household perplexities, complaining of servants, who, when too refractory, were sent to the jail to be whipped, and the complaints or the praises of apprentices who boarded in their master's houses, or rather, were given their board and a moderate yearly stipend to purchase clothes, where they were not made at home. Young people strolled ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... beauty inspires. Into my face are her brown eyes a-glancing, And swift my whole frame thrills with tremulous fires. Dance, lady, dance, for the moments are fleeting, Pause not to place yon refractory curl; Life is for love and the night is for sweeting; ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... left into the drawing-room." A fog of onions and turf-smoke filled the whole of the house, and gave signs that dinner was not far off. Far off? You could hear it frizzling in the kitchen, where the maid was also endeavouring to hush the crying of a third refractory child. But as we entered, all three of Haggarty's ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray

... first Addison and I had had little idea that the old Squire would whip the boys. It was never easy to induce him to whip even a refractory horse or ox. Now he took the paper, read their names, then folded it and put ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens

... their collective wisdom. [535:2] The bishop of after-times rather resembled a despotic sovereign in the midst of his counsellors. He might ask the advice of the presbyters, and condescend to defer to their recommendations; but he could also negative their united resolutions, and cause the refractory quickly to feel the gravity ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... could not be consoled. Since his wife's death he had grown ten years older, and his refractory lock of hair had become perfectly white. His Lucie had been the sole joy in his commonplace and obscure life. She was so pretty, so sweet! such a good manager, dressing upon nothing, and making things seem luxurious with only one flower! M. Violette existed only ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... fight, till both are brought to hopeless desolation, Till wolves troop round the cottage door in one and t'other nation, Till, worn and broken down, the South shall prove no more refractory, And rust eats up the silent looms of ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... Monseigneur Saint Julian, be praised every one of them!" said the King, "and all laud and honour to the learned Galeotti; who read in the stars that this youth's destiny was connected with mine! If the maiden be so attached to him as to make her refractory to the will of Burgundy, this Quentin hath indeed been ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... always a difficult task. The comb that went through those long locks so smoothly when manipulated by some one else, encountered many snarls, and Alene was glad when Kizzie came back to relieve her. A vigorous brushing and curling soon brought the refractory hair to the required state, and the glossy brown curls were finally tied at the nape of her neck with a ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne

... ignorant and vicious, without property, and without habits of industry or enterprise. The colored people in our slave States must, almost without exception, be destitute of information; and in choosing negroes to send away, the masters would be very apt to select the most helpless and the most refractory. Hence the superintendents of Liberia have made reiterated complaints of being flooded with shiploads of "vagrants." These causes are powerful drawbacks. But the negroes in Liberia have schools and churches, and ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child

... For thus, with dripping foreheads and knotted neck-muscles and breaking backs and rankly tempestuous language, did the untutored men-folk of her own beloved home-land hurl their great strength against bulls and boulders and refractory forest trees. Very startlingly as she watched, a brand new thought went zig-zagging through her consciousness. Was it possible,—was it even so much as remotely possible—that the great Senior Surgeon,—the great, wonderful, altogether formidable, altogether ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... animal. Another stout rope is then thrown over all, drawn as tightly as possible under the belly, and laced round the packs, securing them firmly in their place. Over the load, to protect it from rain, is thrown a square piece of matting called a petate. Sometimes, when a mule is a little refractory, he is blindfolded by a thin piece of leather, generally embroidered, termed the tapojos, and he remains perfectly quiet while the process of packing is going on. When the load is securely fastened in its place, the blinder is removed. The man on the near side, with his knee against the mule for ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... is recorded that in a dealer's yard in Dublin he mounted a refractory animal, in his frock-coat and tall hat, and took him round St. Stephen's Green at a gallop, through the traffic, laying into him ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn

... due time falls into their appointed Wedlock for Shelter. I have a long Letter bearing Date the fourth Instant, which gives me a large Account of the Policies of this Court; and find there is now before them a very refractory Person who has escaped all their Machinations for two Years last past: But they have prevented two successive Matches which were of his own Inclination, the one, by a Report that his Mistress was to be married, and the very Day appointed, Wedding-Clothes bought, and all things ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... older, whose name was ——, claimed a right to fag little Peel, which claim (whether rightly or wrongly I know not) Peel resisted. His resistance, however, was in vain:— —— not only subdued him, but determined also to punish the refractory slave; and proceeded forthwith to put this determination in practice, by inflicting a kind of bastinado on the inner fleshy side of the boy's arm, which, during the operation, was twisted round with ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore

... insists upon imposing on them officers whom they detest and an instrument of government which they spurn. These people of Kansas,—who were to be "pacified,"—to be conciliated,—to be guarantied a just administration,—are denounced in the most virulent and abusive terms as refractory, and are threatened with the coercion of a military force, because they are unwilling to submit ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various

... in to assist in taming the refractory subject; but it was soon found that Fanny Jane had none of the chivalrous reverence which had rendered the wild Noddy Newman tolerably tractable, and her failure was as complete and ignominious as that of her sister. Mr. Grant was finally appealed to; and the sternness and severity to ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic

... refractory character swooped down upon them at the very end of the sojourn in Innsbruck. Every one had begun to rejoice in the fact that the fortnight was almost over, and that they could go their different ways without having anything ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon

... manage his own house, not mine," says George, very haughtily. And the caution, far from benefiting him, only rendered the lad more supercilious and refractory. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... production?" We wouldn't prevent them. But if they afterwards tried to recoup their losses by raising prices as they do now, we might get after them with a tax commensurate with their asinine generosity, and keep after them till other concerns got well on their feet. If they became too refractory, what's to prevent the government from taking hold itself and working the oil wells for the benefit of the whole people? Remember the government is theoretically the people's servant, and it could be actually so if the people only had a little ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... tribes. He afterwards conferred badges of merit on some individuals, in acknowledgment of their steady and loyal conduct in the assistance they rendered the military party, when lately sent out in pursuit of the refractory natives to the west and south of the Nepean river. By the time this ceremony was over, Mrs. Macquarie arrived, and the children belonging to, and under the care of the native institution, fifteen in number, preceded by their teacher, ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... employments. He has done us great good though, and may be allowed his little feeling of superiority. The parting salute he bestowed on our steed, in the shape of an astounding crack of his huge whip, has put that refractory animal on his mettle. On we go! past the glazier's pretty house, with its porch and its filbert walk; along the narrow lane bordered with elms, whose fallen leaves have made the road one yellow; past that little farmhouse ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford

... death of James I., Charles called a new parliament in 1625, and in it Waller took his place for Chipping-Wycombe, a borough in Buckinghamshire. This parliament met in London, but was adjourned to Oxford on account of the Plague. In Oxford, it proved refractory to the king's wishes, and refusing to grant him a tithe of the supplies which he demanded, was summarily dismissed. Waller was not re-elected in 1626, when the next parliament was summoned, but secured his return for Agmondesham in March 1627. He appears ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham

... Custrin, common men to Berlin;" the usual arrangement in such case. Ottmachau Town belongs to the Right Reverend von Sinzendorf, Bishop of Breslau, and Primate; whose especial Palace is in Neisse; though he "commonly sends his refractory Priests to do their penance in the Schloss at Ottmachau here,"—and, I should say, had better himself make terms, and come ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... successful among these unfortunate military prisoners. In the imperial rescripts of that period the characteristic expression "privates from among the Jews remaining in the above faith" figures as a standing designation for that group of refractory and incorrigible soldiers who disturbed the officially pre-established harmony of epidemic conversions by remaining loyal to Judaism. But among the "civilian" Jews, who had not been detached from their Jewish environment, apostasy was extraordinarily rare, and law after ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... structure, serving at times for purposes not immediately connected with its original design. A small chamber was devoted to the poorer sort of travellers, who craved a night's lodging on their journey. Beneath was a place of confinement, for the refractory vassals and serfs, when labouring under their master's displeasure. It was here the garrulous clerk said he had been scared by the ghost, and his reluctance to proceed evidently increased as he drew nearer. He did ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... noteworthy of the good results springing from the Feudal System was the development among its privileged members of that individualism, that love of personal independence, which we have seen to be a marked trait of the Teutonic character (see p. 369). Turbulent, violent, and refractory as was the feudal aristocracy of Europe, it performed the grand service of keeping alive during the later mediaeval period the spirit of liberty. It prevented Royalty from becoming as despotic as it would otherwise ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... wooden bowls and trenchers, and their elders from pewter. Governor Bradford owned "fourteen dishes of that material, thirteen platters, three large and two small plates, a candlestick and a bottle," and many hours were spent in polishing the rather refractory metal. He also owned "four large silver spoons" and nine smaller ones. But spoons, too, were chiefly pewter, though often merely wood, and table service was thus reduced as nearly to first principles as possible. Very speedily, however, as the Colony prospered, store of ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... declared that "the Council and Judges had all conspired to trample underfoot the liberties of the subject." Gentlemen, the fact was as notorious as the advance of the Slave Power now is in America. But a few days after the king (Charles I.) had dismissed his refractory Parliament, Eliot, with Hollis, Long, Selden, Strode, and Valentine, most eminent members of the commons, and zealous for liberty and law, was seized by the king's command and thrown into prison. The Habeas Corpus was demanded—it ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker

... either side with tall trees, flowering dogwood, blackberry bushes, and frost grapevines. Half-way down the hill, and under one of the tallest walnut trees, was a little hollow, where dwelt the goblin with which nurses, housemaids, hired men, and older sisters were wont to frighten refractory children into quietness. It was the grave of an old negro. Alas! that to his last resting-place the curse should follow him! Had it been a white person who rested there, not half so fearful would have been the spot; now, however, it was "the old nigger hole"—a place to run by if ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes

... Matthew about the affair that evening; but when Anne proved still refractory the next morning an explanation had to be made to account for her absence from the breakfast table. Marilla told Matthew the whole story, taking pains to impress him with a due sense of the ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... though directly and relieved his companion of one of the refractory beasts, when by means of a good deal of coaxing and patting they were finally got along for some yards and out onto the sandy side, where they whinnied out their satisfaction and recovered their confidence sufficiently to step towards the running waters and ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn

... along they would meet one of the herders sitting at ease on his horse, or galloping madly after some refractory steer that was making a break for freedom. They had, in their ride, passed four of these men, and to every one Scip gave a signal, merely the wave of his hand in a peculiar manner, to which the men had responded likewise. They were nearing another stand, ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton

... observed that much of it would be superseded. As laws, being but the expression of the general will, would be enacted only from an almost universal conviction of their utility, any resistance to such laws, any desire of eluding them, must proceed from a few refractory individuals. As far, then, as relates to the internal administration of the country, a Republic has a manifest advantage over a Monarchy, inasmuch as less force is requisite to compel obedience to ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... project, had much embittered the people against him, to which, likewise, the following unhappy accident greatly contributed. There was a midshipman whose name was Cozens, who had appeared the foremost in all the refractory proceedings of the crew. He had involved himself in brawls with most of the officers who had adhered to the captain's authority, and had even treated the captain himself with great abuse and insolence. As his turbulence and brutality grew every day ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter

... the quarrel crept into the choir, and then, for one whole Sunday, it was all in vain that Mr. Tiverton read the psalm and hymn, casting troubled glances toward the vacant seats of his refractory singers. There was no one to respond, unless it were good old Mr. Hodges, who pitched so high that few could follow him; while Mrs. Captain Simpson—whose daughter, the organist, had been snubbed at the last choir ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes

... went back towards the room in which Joe Cumberland lay. She walked slowly, with her head bent, and her posture seemed to Byrne the very picture of a burden-bearer. Then he followed Daniels up the stairs, led by the jingling of the spurs, great-rowelled spurs that might grip the side of a refractory horse ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand

... with some show of emotion, asked to be pardoned if he dwelt too freely on passages of their early companionship; he then detailed, with a fine touch of humor, his comrade's peculiar manner of slitting the ears and lips of a refractory Jew, who had been captured in one of their previous voyages. He would not weary the patience of his hearers, but would briefly propose that the report of Slit-the-Weazand be accepted, and that the thanks of ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte

... that the authorities will not be severe with him in case of trouble, but he has a horror of having his place entered by the police in their official capacity. He enforces his orders with his fists if necessary, and hustles refractory guests from his premises without hesitating. The "fancy" generally submit to his commands, as they know he is a formidable man when aroused. He keeps his eye on everything, and though he has a business manager, ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... rending, slipping noise on the roof, a scream from Martin, and shouts from the doctor and Peter. With a great sliding and rushing of the refractory sprays, and with a horrifying stumbling and falling, down came Martin, caught in a great rope of the creeper, almost at ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris

... fetched a hired girl from town, and Angela was relieved, during a scorching summer, of a housewife's most intolerable duties. Also, when Jim was hard at work clearing his brush-hills, wrestling with refractory roots of chaparral and manzanita, his greatest pal was kind enough to undertake the entertainment of Angela. The pair rode about together, and Jim told us that it did his heart good to see how the little woman had brightened up. Thorpe, for his part, ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... of a mind ever on the alert; evidences mixed up with memorandums for his will; an interesting discussion brought to an untimely end by the hiring of servants, the letting of fields, sending his boys to school, reproving the refractory members of an hospital; here a dedication, there one of his children's exercises—in another place a receipt for cheap soup. He would amuse his fire side by family anecdotes:—how one of his ancestors (and he was praised as a pattern ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 343, November 29, 1828 • Various

... free to hold them to strict account for every sou received or disbursed. Second, as the fines for breaking the rules are devoted to the fund, the workmen themselves are the sole gainers. This teaches them to respect the rules, and they are little disposed to side with the refractory when they oppose a fine. Third, fines for spoiling work cause no ill-will; indeed, they are submitted to with a good grace. The fine benefits the fund; and, moreover, as in the case of fines for breaking rules, the workman has always a jury of his peers to appeal to: the board of managers ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... hardy resolution, that laughs at all common punishment, and bids defiance to all common degrees of pain. Correction must be proportioned to occasions. The flexible will be reformed by gentle discipline, and the refractory must be subdued by harsher methods. The degrees of scholastick, as of military punishment, no stated rules can ascertain. It must be enforced till it overpowers temptation; till stubbornness becomes flexible, and perverseness regular. Custom and reason have, indeed, set some ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... up, higher and higher, borne by strong hands. A man bit him in the hand. The fact was he had scratched his hand on a refractory horsehair, which had become tired of acting as stuffing for ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli

... a system; the gondolier who was with me took it up and reviled it as representative of birbanti matricolati, who fed upon the poor, and in whose expulsion from that island he rejoiced. But he had little reason to do so, since the last use of the place was for the imprisonment of refractory ecclesiastics. Some of the tombs of the Morosini are in San Clemente—villanous monuments, with bronze Deaths popping out of apertures, and holding marble scrolls inscribed with undying deeds. Indeed, nearly ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... Governments, which are mild and paternal, are fully aware of this and allow the utmost liberty of speech; well knowing that, thanks to that friend and ally of Legitimacy, tobacco, the romantic visionary and somewhat refractory youth will subside into a tranquil ganz alltaeglicher Mann and become totally averse to any innovation which demands ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... Indians. Towards them he displayed the three qualities which a governor of Canada most needed—firmness, sympathy, and fair dealing. His arrogance, so conspicuous in his intercourse with equals or with refractory subordinates, disappears wholly when he comes into contact with the savages. Theatrical he may be, but in the forest he is never intolerant or narrow-minded. And behind his pageants there ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby

... brandishing their weapons. Two more discharges drove them forward amongst the mass of my crew, who had retreated towards the bowsprit; but, being reinforced by the boatswain and carpenter, we took command of the hatches so effectually, that a dozen additional discharges among the ebony legs, drove the refractory to their ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... the Cognisance of the Court: Confesseth a Fame of Incontinence against her and Howard; but saith, it was raised by her Husband's Kindred. I do not doubt, but the Business will go on well; but (peradventure) more slowly, if Howard continue refractory, for want of this power to fine and ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville

... them, and when going they seem to appreciate the fact that the sledges will overrun them should they hesitate or stop. The result is that they are constantly fretful and the more nervous ones tend to become refractory ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... upon every member of the City Imperial Volunteers before the departure of the regiment for active service in the South African War. The Chamberlain also deals with disputes between masters and their apprentices, and has power to commit refractory apprentices to Bridewell for imprisonment. There was formerly attached to his office a little prison-cell, known as "Little Ease," which exercised a wholesome dread upon the turbulent 'prentices of days gone ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various

... Yaroslav. Mutilation, flagellation, and the abundant use of the knout prevailed. The servile custom of chelobitye, or knocking the head on the ground, which was exacted from all subjects on entering the royal presence, was certainly of Tartar origin, as also the punishment inflicted upon refractory debtors, called the pravezh. They were beaten on the shins in a public square every day from eight to eleven o'clock, till the money was paid. The custom is fully described by Giles Fletcher ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various

... was deeply grateful to them in her heart whenever they took her refractory niece safely out of her way. Her escapades were apt to be so wild nowadays, and her language so horrifying; and whenever the poor lady remonstrated, she was always told that it was the result of the ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... minutes after sundown Duckbill appeared, quite unconscious of offence against civilised customs, carrying a waddy with which to administer an anodyne should his capture prove the least refractory. Threats and scoldings were lost. He was incapable of comprehending why there should be a moment's hesitation about the fulfilment of ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... on till he had but ten louis left. Counting them over with cheerful exactness, he rose up, lit a cigarette, placed the ten louis on the fatal spot with cynical precision, and with a gay smile kissed his hand to the refractory Nothing and said, "You've got it all, Zero-good-night! Goodnight, Zero!" Then he had buttoned his coat and turned away to seek the cool air of the Mediterranean. He had gone but a step or two, his head half gaily turned to the table where the dwindling onlookers stood watching the wheel spin round, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Natural curiosity prompted her to make an effort to see the heroes who were conquering Europe in obedience to a word from the Emperor in the order of the day; the heroes of a modern time who outdid the mythical feats of paladins of old. The cities of France, however avaricious or refractory, must perforce do honor to the Imperial Guard, and mayors and prefects went out to meet them with set speeches as if the conquerors had been crowned kings. Mme. de Bargeton went to a ridotto given to the town by a regiment, and fell in love with an officer of a good family, a ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac

... which herds of disconsolate-looking cattle are roaming; the vaqueros, (herdsmen) are cantering about after them on their lean horses, with their lazos hanging in coils on their left arms, and now and then calling to order some refractory beast who tries to get away from the herd, by sending the loop over his horns or letting it fall before him as he runs, and hitching it up with a jerk round his hind legs as he steps within it. But the poor ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor

... in Middle Georgia, fifty years ago. Filial obedience and deference to age was the first lesson. "Honor thy father and mother, that thy days may be long in the land," was familiar to the ears of every child before they could lisp their a, b, c; and upon the first demonstration of a refractory disobedience, a severe punishment taught them that the law was absolute and inexorable. To lie, or touch what was not his own, was beyond the pale of pardon, or mercy, and a solitary aberration was a stain ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... ways by which high temperature may be measured," says the Electrical Engineer, London. "The first uses an air thermometer of refractory material; the second depends on the change in the resistance of a platinum wire with change in temperature; and the third is based on the employment of a thermo couple of relatively infusible metals. According to Messrs. Holborn and W. Wein, in a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896 • Various

... sensibilities and sometimes none at all. Now he would be in the hospital tent bending with streaming eyes over the victims of fever, and kissing the dying Corporal Webster, and an hour later would find him down at the guard house, prying open the jaws of a refractory soldier with a bayonet in order to insert a gag; or in anger drilling a battalion, for the fault of a single man, to the last point of endurance; or shamefully abusing the most honorable and faithful officers ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill

... witnessed many times. We have established schools in country places, where the people made very little money; yet they were but too happy to give us money for the building and support of schools. There are hundreds of priests who can say the same of themselves. And should there be refractory characters who do not care about a good Catholic education, let us refuse them absolution, as penitents who are not disposed for the worthy reception of the sacraments. We cannot ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... what's this bally important business we've got on hand?" he asked, as he adjusted a refractory hobble strap. "Seems to me you threw away an ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx

... chap you are, Lionel!" cried John Massingbird, pulling vigorously; for the pipe was turning refractory, and would not keep alight. "There are lots of things you have left behind you here, that I, in your place, should have marched off ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... Ede, and Uden, were improvised villages, with blocks of long community houses, separate dormitories for the unmarried men and for the single women, a dining-hall, a chapel, one or two schoolhouses, a recreation-hall, a house of detention for refractory persons, one hospital for general cases, and another for infectious diseases. It was all built of wood, simple and primitive, but as comfortable as could be expected under the conditions. The chief danger of the camps was idleness. ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke

... to deal with," he said, "But if it is not accompanied by self-will or obstinacy—(and boys of your age are apt to be self-willed and obstinate)—then much can be done. The Church has infinite patience even with refractory sinners." ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... his watch; he could just see the figures—it was ten minutes to six. Mounting again to the summit, he looked round. Yes, there she was, making her way up the hill, painfully struggling with refractory cloak and skirt. A moment later she joined him and gave ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope

... said I, "what causes these people to complain more than the rest, when they have neither torture nor devil near them?" "O," said the angel, "the less torment they have without, the more they have within. These are refractory heretics, atheists, antichristians, worldly- wise ones, abjurers of the faith, persecutors of the church, and an infinity of such like wretches, who are abandoned entirely to the punishment of conscience, more tormenting than flame ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne

... hovered the bearded face of Azim Khan, pressing upon his refractory Sahib this infallible medicine, that 'chikken brath' or jelly. And occasionally there was another bearded face: vaguely familiar, though he could not put a name ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... oblong form flanked by stupendous mountains; the enormous barrier of the Dundun Shikkun almost precludes the possibility of bringing cannon from the south, although one gun is known to have been dragged over by sheer manual labour; it was brought by Dost Mahommed from Cabul to quell some refractory chiefs, the carriage being taken to pieces, and the gun fastened by ropes in the hollowed trunk of ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem

... Alick nodded, and swinging himself up on the wall, he watched Binks, who was patiently pottering over the carrot-beds. The ceaseless tussel he had to induce these refractory vegetables to make a fair show was one of the minor crosses of the ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell

... go wrong in ascribing a primary value to the investigations into the relation between the solid, liquid, and gaseous states of matter on the one hand, and degrees of pressure and of heat on the other. Almost all, even the most refractory, solids have been vaporised by the intense heat of the electric arc; and the most refractory gases have been forced to assume the liquid, and even the solid, forms by the combination of high pressure with intense cold. It has further been shown that there is no discontinuity between these ...
— The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century • T.H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley

... received; and declaring his fixed determination, in obedience to the high and irresistible duty consigned to him by the constitution, "to take care that the laws be faithfully executed," to reduce the refractory to obedience. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall

... with an arrow, which flew up through the ether and landed in the plains of heaven. The arrow was shot down again and killed the envoy. Finally two other envoys were sent down, who landed in Izumo, and after some parley with the refractory deities of the land received their adhesion and settled and pacified the land. Then they returned to the heavenly plains and reported ...
— Japan • David Murray

... willingly with those I find there; because there everyone is isolated, no one is concerned with his neighbour, you do not see the human bodies which throng you, but you feel the breath of souls around. However refractory, however damp you may be, you end by taking fire at this contact, and are astonished to find yourself all at once less vile; it seems to me that the prayers which elsewhere when they leave my lips fall back to the ground exhausted and chilled, spring upwards ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... the puzzle being to include all the marks given. One that I saw had four of the dots placed unusually close together, and the fifth in a distant corner: this latter, in the opinion of the lookers-on, would surely prove refractory. After some moments of consideration, with pencil suspended and eye attentive, the artist commenced drawing. In ten minutes the sketch was finished. It was an angel: her upturned head took in the highest of the group of dots; one hand hanging ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... sweepers cannot be readily coerced, because no Hindoo or Mussulman would do their work to save his life, nor will he pollute himself by beating the refractory scavenger." ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... gently at first, even while they were struggling with the rather refractory top, in the dim light of the two oil lamps. But they managed to get it in place. Then, as they were fastening the side curtains, the storm burst in all its fury, with a suddenness ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope

... of drawers, striving vainly to push the refractory drawer shut, although he knew by experience it was quite impossible. She could see him without turning her head; he was shabbier than ever; even his tie—his one extravagance used to be gay ties—was shabby, and his shoes would hardly keep on his feet. His round pink face was still ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad

... and having called in two men that were passing to help us to take them prisoners, in case of their being refractory, we carried them by the lug and the horn before ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir

... 'favours' at the office, find it useful to be spies upon their neighbours, to detect violations of the 'rules of the estate.' It is mainly through the spy-system that Mr. Steuart Trench, according to his own avowal, won most of his victories over refractory tenants. For example, on this estate he had a woman acting as a spy at the meetings of the Ribbonmen; and he boasted that a dog could not bark at Farney without his knowledge. I refer to this matter here again for the purpose ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... meat had its inconveniences. Puddings and sausages, red herrings, lobsters, and game are "refractory." The bigger a fish is, the more gelatine it contains, and consequently the heavier it is. Vegetables cause acidity, macaroni makes people dream; cheeses, "considered generally, are difficult of digestion." A glass of water in the morning is "dangerous." Everything you eat or ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert

... the little doctor, trying to slip a collar button into a refractory binding. "Dear me, now that's gone—no, 'tisn't—that's luck," as the button rolled off into a corner of the bureau-top ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney

... magnificently they get along," cried Jack, again wishing that he had a bridle to guide his refractory steed. ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... especially interested in medicine, should not be trained as an anatomist, a heart and lung specialist, an osteopath or a masseur? He does not need eyes to listen to heart beats, find the third vertebra, or rub the kinks out of a refractory muscle. In Japan the government reserves massage as an occupation for the blind, and in the hospitals of England and France blind masseurs are given the preference, and their work receives the highest commendation. Los Angeles ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley

... is alive; there should be no unresponsive surfaces or details; but most of our buildings are dead—dead walls, dead lines, oblong boxes, neat and commodious, but dead. The practical problems which the architect has to solve are so complex and difficult, and the materials which he uses are so refractory, that there is inevitably a sacrifice of the beauty of appearance to utility. The very size of a building makes it aesthetically unmanageable all over. Here the lesser industrial arts, like the goldsmith's, have an advantage in the superior control ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker

... maneuvered by a lever. From thence it descends into the retort, G, where it is roasted by the heat of the fireplace, L. The sulphur converted into a state of vapor passes through the conduit, R, into the coke or charcoal retort, G', which is divided into two parts by the partition, g g', of refractory clay, and heated by ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various

... half their number were killed or wounded before they could defend themselves; while the rest, as they were dragged out, were made prisoners. The wounded were allowed to lie on the shore, while the rest were secured by ropes, which had been brought on shore to bind any refractory slaves. ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston

... seated, Madame de Bergenheim sat at the piano and Marillac stood behind her. The artist selected one of the scores, spread it out on the rack, turned down the corners so that during the execution he might not be stopped by some refractory leaf, coughed in his deep bass voice, placed himself in such a manner as to show the side of his head which he thought would produce the best effect upon the audience, then gave a knowing nod to Gerfaut, who still stood gloomy and isolated in ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... large crops with a small number of hands, and who could tell to a fraction how long a slave could be worked on a given quantity of corn, also put in their claims for consideration. Short, thick-set men, with fierce faces, who gloried in the fact that they had at various times killed refractory negroes, also presented themselves to undergo the ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... was constructed of the form shown by illustration, about 4 ft. 6 in. high and 2 ft. 3 in. wide at the base, and gradually swelling to 2 ft. 9 in. at the top, built entirely of fireclay bricks. Two refractory tubes, 2 in. square internally, and the height of the furnace, were used for the double purpose of producing the gas and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various

... struck out these concessions as unnecessary and dangerous, and placed Episcopacy in full and exclusive possession of the ground, as the divinely instituted and only admissible form of Church government and discipline. He caused this book to be circulated; but the attempt to reason with the refractory, after having failed in the attempt to coerce them, is not generally very successful. The archbishop, in his report to the king this year of the state of things throughout his province, represents the spirit of non-conformity to the Church of England as getting too ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... 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

... acceded to her request, and allotted a pleasant garden-house near his palace for her residence, at which he often visited her, and conversed with her on religious topics, to his great edification and comfort, for she was sensibly pious. Not long after her arrival, several refractory vassals who had for years withheld their usual tribute, and against whom the good sultan, unwilling to shed blood, though his treasury much felt the defalcation, had not sent a force to compel payment, unexpectedly sent in their arrears; submissively ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.

... anyway, so," and Polly crushed the refractory folds recklessly in one hand; "that's the way Mary Gibbs's hat trimmings look, and I'm sure they're a complete success. Oh! that's lovely," cried Polly, at the effect. "Now, that's the treatment the whole drapery needs," she added in the tone of ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney

... are those which render crowds capable of adopting certain convictions and absolutely refractory to the acceptance of others. These factors prepare the ground in which are suddenly seen to germinate certain new ideas whose force and consequences are a cause of astonishment, though they are only spontaneous in appearance. The outburst and putting ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon

... Dahcotah. He had a number of young warriors and hunters growing up around him, and he sometimes got tired of their disturbances, and would use, not the rod but a stick of wood to some purpose. Although it had the good effect of quelling the refractory spirits of the young, it invariably fired the soul of his aged mother. The old woman would cry and howl, and refuse to eat, for days; till, finding this had no effect upon her hard-hearted son, she told him she would do something that would make him sorry, the next time he struck ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman

... but proved refractory on a point of honor. "For," said he, "no one will know I am 'Co.' and if you are such a great firm, I want the public honor of ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various



Words linked to "Refractory" :   refractoriness, stubborn, fireclay, disobedient, liner, unresponsive, recalcitrant, lining, medical specialty, alumina, furnace lining, aluminium oxide, aluminum oxide, medicine, intractable



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