Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use recalcitrant in a sentence

11 example sentences · adjective, noun

Recalcitrant means marked by a stubborn unwillingness to obey authority. Example: “His nimble fancy was recalcitrant to mental discipline.”

Examples of recalcitrant by meaning

adjectiveMarked by a stubborn unwillingness to obey authority.

  • His nimble fancy was recalcitrant to mental discipline.1908, Edith Wharton, “In Trust”, in The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories
  • There was something in her manner so reminiscent of the school teacher reprimanding a recalcitrant pupil that Mr.1914, P. G. Wodehouse, Death at the Excelsior
  • The incentive to this first-class performance was a 14 min. late start from Hellifield, due to a recalcitrant van door which could not be properly secured.1958 August, Cecil J. Allen, “British Locomotive Practice and Performance”, in Railway Magazine, page 560

adjectiveDifficult to deal with or to operate.

  • The more labile organic constituents of complex dissolved and particulate organic matter are commonly hydrolyzed and metabolized more rapidly than more recalcitrant organic compounds that are less accessible enzymatically.2003, Robert G. Wetzel, “Solar radiation as an ecosystem modulator”, in E. Walter Helbling, Horacio Zagarese, editors, UV Effects in...
  • The Hansa had no legal status, independent finances or a common institutional framework, while the major weapon against recalcitrant members (or opponents) was the threat of embargo.2004, Derek W. Urwin, Germany: From Geographical Expression to Regional Accommodation, in Michael Keating (editor), Regions and Regionalism...
  • Particularly recalcitrant examples which made it impossible to remove actual words while maintaining the balance of the set were resolved by altering a consonant in the base word to create a new base form.2006, Janet Pierrehumbert, “Syllable structure and word structure: a study of triconsonantal clusters in English”, in Patricia A. Keating...

More sentences with recalcitrant

  • She didn't fancy having to deal with two recalcitrant, and quite possibly drunken, teenagers on her own, let alone a whole partyful.2015, Susan Napier, A Passionate Proposition. From the entry partyful
  • The overcoming of this institutional segregationalism is an ongoing effort, one directed not just at non-medievalists but at conservative or recalcitrant persons inside the field.1998, James J. Paxson, Lawrence M. Clopper, Sylvia Tomasch, The Performance of Middle English Culture, →ISBN, page 4. From the entry segregationalism
  • For these reasons, the self-deceiver is particularly recalcitrant and impervious to any attempts of her own to survey and critically revise her own pseudorational self-conception.1988, Brian P. McLaughlin, Amélie Rorty, Perspectives on Self-Deception, page 318. From the entry pseudorational
  • The blasters are those beams of ravening destruction which take care of recalcitrant meteorites in a spaceship's course when the deflectors can't handle them.1945 May, Murray Leinster, “First Contact”, in Astounding Stories, volume 35, number 3. From the entry deflector
  • CO₂ laser matrixectomy is often the procedure of choice for permanent, partial, or total nail ablation in the treatment of recurrent ingrown nails, pincer deformity, and recalcitrant onychomycosis.1990, Jeffrey S. Dover, Kenneth A. Arndt, Illustrated cutaneous laser surgery: a practitioner's guide, Appleton & Lange. From the entry matrixectomy

Meaning of recalcitrant

  1. adjective Marked by a stubborn unwillingness to obey authority.
  2. adjective Unwilling to cooperate socially.
  3. adjective Difficult to deal with or to operate.

Full definition of recalcitrant

Questions about recalcitrant in a sentence

How do you use recalcitrant in a sentence?
Recalcitrant is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “His nimble fancy was recalcitrant to mental discipline.”
What is a short sentence with recalcitrant?
“His nimble fancy was recalcitrant to mental discipline.”
What does recalcitrant mean?
Recalcitrant means marked by a stubborn unwillingness to obey authority.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: recalcitrant (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use recalcitrant in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/recalcitrant. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.