Word of the Day

: October 21, 2024

intransigent

adjective in-TRAN-suh-junt

What It Means

Intransigent is a formal word that describes a person who refuses to compromise or abandon an often extreme position or attitude. It can also describe a thing, such as a system or point of view, that shows the same kind of stubbornness.

// Despite the mediator's best efforts, the opposing sides in the dispute remained intransigent.

See the entry >

intransigent in Context

"Honey and vinegar, a traditional medicinal combination known as oxymel, dates to the ancient world. Apothecaries in the Middle Ages sold it, Hippocrates prescribed it and the physician-philosopher Ibn-Sīnā extolled its virtues. Today such a mixture sounds likelier to dress a salad than a lesion—but with antibiotic-resistant bacteria on the rise, scientists are eagerly seeking new ways to fight intransigent infections. Now a study in Microbiology suggests oxymel may indeed help." — Leo Deluca, Scientific American, 1 Oct. 2023

Did You Know?

Both intransigent and its younger sibling intransigence come to English from the Spanish adjective intransigente, meaning "uncompromising," and ultimately from the Latin verb transigere, "to come to an agreement." Knowing that many English words with the prefix in- have prefix-less antonyms, one might guess that transigent has its own place in our language. While this word does pop up occasionally in print, it is too uncommon at this point to qualify for entry in our dictionaries. Since intransigent is a Spanish borrowing, English transigent is considered a back-formation–that is, a word formed by subtraction of a real or supposed affix.