contumacious
/ˌkɒntjʊˈmeɪʃəs
/adjective archaic or Law
(Especially of a defendant’s behaviour) stubbornly or wilfully disobedient to authority: his refusal to make child support payments was contumacious...
- I have found him to be in wilful and contumacious breach of the injunction on him, which I am quite certain he knew perfectly well he had to obey in every respect.
- The current law in Ontario is that, in order to be ordered to pay costs personally, a solicitor, acting in bad faith, must be guilty of outrageous conduct that is contumacious and so egregious as to engage the contempt powers of the court.
- Parliament was intending to impose a penalty on a contumacious employer who decides he is not going to give the employee the required statement.
Derivatives
contumaciously
- They might start saying ‘on the other hand’ and contumaciously adding counter-arguments to the lesson plans that they provide.
- The document addresses the public scandal of politicians who persistently and contumaciously oppose the church's teaching without any appropriate response from their pastors.
- He was practical and level-headed, and the things he saw in this new world contumaciously defied everything he had been taught to believe in.
Origin
Late 16th century: from Latin contumax, contumac- (perhaps from con- 'with' + tumere 'to swell') + -ious.