Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Very obstinate; stubborn; wilfully contrary or refractory; wilful.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective obsolete Obstinate; willful; refractory.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective stubborn, willful, obstinate, refractory

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin pervicax

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Examples

  • May they be efficacious upon the mind of one of the most pervicacious young creatures that ever was heard of!

    Clarissa Harlowe 2006

  • Of late, I am told by shopkeepers, the tin box with the pervicacious cover is becoming popular; but I remain true to my sponge in a bottle: for, unlike the leopard, I am able to change my spots.

    The Perfect Gentleman Ralph Bergengren 1909

  • May they be efficacious upon the mind of one of the most pervicacious young creatures that ever was heard of!

    Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 1 Samuel Richardson 1725

Comments

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  • "Nicholas instantly resumed, demanding of Mrs. Barclay with amazed innocence other women other women must she be like a pervicacious angel think that because he loved her with every beat of his heart, love and had loved, as she herself well remembered and in this house should remember best of all..."

    - W.M. Spackman, An Armful of Warm Girl

    December 22, 2011

  • A man whose beliefs are fallacious

    Can err without being mendacious,

    But rise in defiance

    Of that vile alliance

    Of knowing men still pervicacious.

    April 15, 2019