inflexible

inflexible 1 rigid, *stiff, tense, stark, wooden

Analogous words: hard, solid, *firm: *rigid, rigorous, strict, stringent: tough, tenacious, stout, *strong: immobile, immovable

Antonyms: flexible

Contrasted words: *elastic, resilient, supple, springy: pliable, pliant, *plastic, malleable, ductile: fluid, *liquid

2 Inflexible, inexorable, obdurate, adamant, adamantine mean not to be moved from or changed in a predetermined course or purpose. All are applicable to persons, decisions, laws, and principles; otherwise, they vary in their applications.

Inflexible usually implies firmly established principles rigidly adhered to; sometimes it connotes resolute steadfastness, sometimes slavish conformity, sometimes mere pigheadedness

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society's attitude toward drink and dishonesty was still inflexible— Wharton

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a morality that is rigid and inflexible and dead— Ellis

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arbitrary and inflexible rulings of bureaucracy— Shils

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Inexorable, when applied to persons, stresses deafness to entreaty

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more fierce and more inexorable far than empty tigers or the roaring sea—Shak.

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our guide was inexorable, saying he never spared the life of a rattlesnake, and killed him— Mark Van Doren

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When applied to decisions, rules, laws, and their enforcement, it often connotes relentlessness, ruthlessness, and finality beyond question

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nature inexorably ordains that the human race shall perish of famine if it stops working— Shaw

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It is also often applied to what exists or happens of necessity or cannot be avoided or evaded

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inexorable limitations of human nature

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inexorable destiny

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you and I must see the cold inexorable necessity of saying to these inhuman, unrestrained seekers of world conquest. . . "You shall go no further"— Roosevelt

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Obdurate is applicable chiefly to persons and almost invariably implies hardness of heart or insensitiveness to such external influences as divine grace or to appeals for mercy, forgiveness, or assistance

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if when you make your prayers, God should be so obdurate as yourselves, how would it fare with your departed souls?— Shak.

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the obdurate philistine materialism of bourgeois society— Connolly

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Adamant and adamantine usually imply extraordinary strength of will or impenetrability to temptation or entreaty

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Cromwell's adamantine courage was shown on many a field of battle— Goldwin Smith

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when Eve upon the first of men the apple pressed with specious cant, O, what a thousand pities then that Adam was not Adam-ant— Thomas Moore

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Analogous words: *rigid, strict, rigorous, stringent: intractable, refractory, headstrong, *unruly, ungovernable: implacable, relentless, unrelenting, *grim: stubborn, *obstinate, dogged, stiff-necked, mulish

Antonyms: flexible

Contrasted words: *elastic, resilient, expansive, volatile, buoyant: amenable, tractable, docile, biddable (see OBEDIENT)