obstreperous

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
16
Words With Friends
19
Letters
12
Pronunciation
/əbˈstɹɛp.əɹ.əs/
See all 4 pronunciations
/əbˈstɹɛp.əɹ.əs/ · /ɒbˈstɹɛp.əɹ.əs/ · /əbˈstɹɛpəɹəs/ (US) · /ɑːbˈstɹɛpəɹəs/ (US)

Definition of obstreperous

2 senses · 1 part of speech · etymology included

adj

  1. Attended by, or making, a loud and tumultuous noise; boisterous.
    “[O]n a clear still summer evening you may hear from the battery of New York the obstreperous peals of broad-mouthed laughter of the Dutch negroes at Communipaw.”
    “This disposition his subsequent life had not tended to change in any considerable degree, though increased knowledge, with much observation, and a little reading, had rendered the gaiety of the young man a very different thing to the obstreperous mirth of the boy.”
    “[…] my hope Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope With that obstreperous joy success would bring”
    “He developed an obstreperous baritone—it was the same voice, now more specifically in action, that I had first heard on the devastated prairie; and he made himself rather preponderant, whether he happened to know the song or not.”
    “The train was soon filled to the brim with obstreperous American tourists brandishing Pina Coladas from the upper deck, and started to resemble a smallish dry-land cruise ship.”
See all 2 definitions

adj

  1. Attended by, or making, a loud and tumultuous noise; boisterous.
    “[O]n a clear still summer evening you may hear from the battery of New York the obstreperous peals of broad-mouthed laughter of the Dutch negroes at Communipaw.”
    “This disposition his subsequent life had not tended to change in any considerable degree, though increased knowledge, with much observation, and a little reading, had rendered the gaiety of the young man a very different thing to the obstreperous mirth of the boy.”
    “[…] my hope Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope With that obstreperous joy success would bring”
    “He developed an obstreperous baritone—it was the same voice, now more specifically in action, that I had first heard on the devastated prairie; and he made himself rather preponderant, whether he happened to know the song or not.”
    “The train was soon filled to the brim with obstreperous American tourists brandishing Pina Coladas from the upper deck, and started to resemble a smallish dry-land cruise ship.”
  2. Stubbornly defiant; disobedient; resistant to authority or control (whether in a noisy manner or not).
    “[W]e came to Whittingham. Thence to Newcastle, where an obstreperous horse retarded us for an hour at least.”
    “My dress was draggled, my hat had slipped back, and the kinks and curls of my obstreperous hair were something awful.”
    “They reviled the committee collectively and singly; bragged that they would shoot Coleman, Truett, Durkee, and some others at sight; flourished weapons, and otherwise became so publicly and noisily obstreperous that the committee decided they needed a lesson.”
    “Now [Judah] becomes their surrogate in being subject to a bizarre but peculiarly fitting principle of retaliation, taken in by a piece of attire, as his father was, learning through his own obstreperous flesh that the divinely appointed process of election cannot be thwarted by human will or social convention.”
    “This is what your boyfriend did, honey. When he was in one of his more obstreperous moods.”

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin obstreperus, first attested circa 17th c. Compare obstropulous.

Words you can make from obstreperous

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9-letter words

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7-letter words

96 words

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49 words

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