obstreperous
/əbˈstrɛp(ə)rəs
/adjective
Noisy and difficult to control: the boy is cocky and obstreperous...
- It is all the more unhappy because we see what gentleness, what tact and professionalism he has to bring to the job of minicab driving: dealing with all sorts of obstreperous and difficult customers.
- The crowd seated in the bleachers - it was a full house - was incessantly loud and obstreperous.
- If NASA can pull it off - and at the same time deal once and for with obstreperous French air traffic controllers and striking baggage handlers - the result could be a civil aviation revolution.
Derivatives
obstreperously
/ adverb ...- This isn't a case of the French behaving as obstreperously as the Americans.
- The communist members of the Congress coalition are obstreperously opposed to too many market-friendly measures.
- They laughed and hailed obstreperously whenever I spoke something they had not heard of or were interested in.
obstreperousness
/ noun ...- It is this obstreperousness that is the problem.
- Rogers has his uses in some roles, but not as a leading man whose appeal must mitigate his obstreperousness.
- What seems clearer in the back-and-forth of the past week is that even if the pundits are right about postwar forgiveness for prewar obstreperousness, forgiveness might not come easy.
Origin
Late 16th century (in the sense 'clamorous, vociferous'): from Latin obstreperus (from obstrepere, from ob- 'against' + strepere 'make a noise') + -ous.