mulish
/ˈmjuːlɪʃ
/adjective
Resembling or likened to a mule in being stubborn: a mulish expression...
- Instead, you feel a stubborn, almost mulish insistence that this, and this alone, was exactly how each painting was always going to turn out.
- Her voice was soft but stubborn, her mulish chin set.
- The moodiness, mischievousness and mulish recalcitrance we see in all our favorite appliances comprise much of what it means to be a human born after AD 1400.
Synonyms
obstinate, stubborn, stubborn as a mule, pig-headed, recalcitrant, refractory, intransigent, intractable, unyielding, inflexible, unbending, bull-headed, stiff-necked, headstrong, difficult, wilful, self-willed, cross-grained
British informal bloody-minded, bolshie
archaic contumacious
Derivatives
mulishly
/ adverb ...- But in the past year, Labour was mulishly refusing to admit that anything was wrong anywhere in its vicinity.
- And I really can't see why we can't use it,’ Kitty said, turning to Alexia and setting her jaw mulishly.
- She mulishly turned her head away from him, making him smirk.
mulishness
/ noun ...- Editorialising on the President's acceptance speech, the New York Times also focused on his self-congratulating mulishness.
- But some will see the U.S. position as more American mulishness.
- Auden was stressing a moral difficulty of war, which is exactly what Orwell, in a fit of mulishness, claimed he had failed to do.