different between headstrong vs obstreperous

English

Etymology

From Middle English heedstrong, equivalent to head +? strong.

Pronunciation

Adjective

headstrong (comparative more headstrong, superlative most headstrong)

1. Determined to do as one pleases, and not as others want.

   He was in that headstrong teenage phase when he felt like he knew everything.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:obstinate

Derived terms

• headstrongly
• headstrongness

Translations

English

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?b?st??p.??.?s/, /?b?st??p.??.?s/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?b?st??p???s/, /??b?st??p???s/

Adjective

obstreperous (comparative more obstreperous, superlative most obstreperous)

1. Attended by, or making, a loud and tumultuous noise; boisterous.

   Synonyms: clamorous, loud, noisy, vociferous

   • 1809, Washington Irving, Knickerbocker's History of New York, ch. 7:

     [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.

   • 1855, Robert Browning, "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came":

     […] my hope

     Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope

     With that obstreperous joy success would bring

   • 1918, Henry B. Fuller, On the Stairs, ch. 3:

     He developed an obstreperous baritone […] and he made himself rather preponderant, whether he happened to know the song or not.

2. Stubbornly defiant; disobedient; resistant to authority or control, whether in a noisy manner or not.

   Synonyms: recalcitrant, uncooperative, unruly; see also Thesaurus:obstinate

   • 1827, Sir Walter Scott, The Journal of Sir Walter Scott, October 1827:

     [W]e came to Whittingham. Thence to Newcastle, where an obstreperous horse retarded us for an hour at least.

   • 1903, Lucy Maud Montgomery, "A Sandshore Wooing" in Short Stories: 1902-1903:

     My dress was draggled, my hat had slipped back, and the kinks and curls of my obstreperous hair were something awful.

   • 1915, Stewart Edward White, The Gray Dawn, ch. 70:

     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.

   • 2015, Penny Dreadful S2E9, 3 min

     This is what your boyfriend did, honey. When he was in one of his more obstreperous moods.

Derived terms

• obstreperously
• obstreperousness
• stroppy

Translations