Definition of "obdurate" []

• Hardened in wrongdoing or wickedness; stubbornly impenitent: "obdurate conscience of the old sinner” ( Sir Walter Scott). (adjective)
• Hardened against feeling; hardhearted: an obdurate miser. (adjective)
• Not giving in to persuasion; intractable. See Synonyms at inflexible. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Geithner plainly has no patience for what he describes as the obdurate unwillingness of colleagues to subordinate their desire for superficial impact to the larger vision."
• "He also defended his seizure of white-owned farms, saying the program pitted the majority against the white minority he described as obdurate and backed by the British."
• "In their valuation of the distribution of grace, theologians distinguish somewhat sharply between ordinary sinners (among whom they include habitual and relapsing sinners) and those sinners whose intellect is blinded, and whose heart is hardened, the so-called obdurate sinners (obcaecati et indurati, impaenitentes)."