obstreperous meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

obstreperous

adj

UK /əbˈstɹɛp.əɹ.əs/ · US /əbˈstɹɛpəɹəs/

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

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.1809, Diedrich Knickerbocker [pseudonym; Washington Irving], chapter VII, in A History of New York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), New York, N.Y.: Inskeep & Bradford, […], →OCLC:
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.1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXII, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 277:

3 more examples

[…] my hope Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope With that obstreperous joy success would bring1855, Robert Browning, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came:
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.1918, Henry B[lake] Fuller, On the Stairs, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Hougton Mifflin Company; Cambridge, Mass.: The Riverside Press, →OCLC, part II, section III, page 57:
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.2026 March 18, Vitali Vitaliev, “Small is beautiful... Pt 3”, in RAIL, number 1057, page 68:

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.October 1827, Sir Walter Scott, The Journal of Sir Walter Scott:
My dress was draggled, my hat had slipped back, and the kinks and curls of my obstreperous hair were something awful.1903, Lucy Maud Montgomery, “A Sandshore Wooing”, in Short Stories: 1902-1903:

4 more examples

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.1915, Stewart Edward White, “chapter 70”, in The Gray Dawn:
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.1981, Robert Alter, “A Literary Approach to the Bible”, in The Art of Biblical Narrative, page 10:
This is what your boyfriend did, honey. When he was in one of his more obstreperous moods.2015, 3 min from the start, in Penny Dreadful, season 2, episode 9:
He said he loved making movies like Luca Guadagnino’s “A Bigger Splash,” in which his charismatic, obstreperous character, Harry Hawkes, a music producer described by the Italian director as “a pagan fawn,” does a Dionysian dance to the Rolling Stones song “Emotional Rescue.”2022 October 22, Maureen Dowd, “Ralph Fiennes, Master of Monsters”, in The New York Times:

Derived terms: obstreperosity, obstreperously, obstreperousness, stroppy, unobstreperous