intransigent
pronunciation
How to pronounce intransigent in British English:
UK [ɪnˈtrænsɪdʒənt]
How to pronounce intransigent in American English:
US [ɪnˈtrænzɪdʒənt]
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- Adjective:
- not capable of being swayed or diverted from a course; unsusceptible to persuasion
Word Origin
- intransigent
- intransigent: [19] In the 18th century there was an extreme leftist political party in Spain which, because of its unwillingness ever to compromise, was known as los intransigentes. The name was formed with the negative prefix in- from transigentes, the present participle of Spanish transigir ‘compromise’. This was a descendant of Latin transigere, literally ‘drive through’, hence ‘come to an understanding, accomplish’ (source of English transact), a compound verb formed from trans- ‘through’ and agere ‘drive’ (from which English gets action, agent, etc.) French took the Spanish word over as a general adjective meaning ‘uncompromising’, and English acquired it in the early 1880s.=> act, action, agent, transact
- intransigent (adj.)
- 1881, from French intransigeant, from Spanish los intransigentes, literally "those not coming to agreement," name for extreme republican party in the Spanish Cortes 1873-4, from in- "not" (see in- (1)) + transigente "compromising," from Latin transigentem (nominative transigens), present participle of transigere "come to an agreement, accomplish, to carry through" (see transaction). Acquired its generalized sense in French.
Example
- 1. The president had become intransigent , inflexible .
- 2. Also blamed : student disaffection , parental neglect , intransigent teachers unions and flaws in the way we measure performance .
- 3. There would be so many people to blame : eurocrats , financiers , intransigent germans , feckless mediterraneans , foreigners of all kinds .
- 4. It brought little change to the domestic economy , which has not been a motor of growth for decades , and where cumbersome regulation , protected monopolies and oligopolies and intransigent trade unions carry on much as before .