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Adamant vs Refractory - What's the difference?

adamant | refractory |

As adjectives the difference between adamant and refractory

is that adamant is firm; unshakeable; unyielding; determined while refractory is obstinate and unruly; strongly opposed to something.

As nouns the difference between adamant and refractory

is that adamant is an imaginary rock or mineral of impenetrable hardness; a name given to the diamond and other substances of extreme hardness while refractory is a material or piece of material, such as a brick, that has a very high melting point.

adamant

Alternative forms

* adamaunt (obsolete)

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Firm; unshakeable; unyielding; determined.
  • *
  • *
  • *
  • Synonyms

    * See also

    References

    *

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An imaginary rock or mineral of impenetrable hardness; a name given to the diamond and other substances of extreme hardness.
  • * {{quote-book
  • , year= 1582 , year_published= , author= , by= , title= The first booke of the Christian exercise, appertayning to resolution , url= http://books.google.com/books?id=gvbik25DcCgC&pg=PT144 , original= , chapter= 8 , section = , isbn= , edition= , publisher= G. Flinton , location= , editor= , volume= , page= , passage= This then is and alwayes hath ben the fashion of Worldlinges, & reprobate persons, to harden their hartes as an adamant stone, against anye thinge that shalbe tolde the for amendement of their lives, and for the savinge of their soules. }}
  • An embodiment of impregnable hardness.
  • * 1956 , , The City and the Stars , p 34
  • Unprotected matter, however adamant , would have been ground to dust ages ago.
  • A magnet; a lodestone.
  • * 1594–96 , :
  • You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant :
    But yet you draw not iron, for all my heart
    Is true as steel. Leave you your power to draw,
    And I shall have no power to follow you.

    Derived terms

    * adamance (pos n) * adamantane (pos a) * adamantean (pos a) * adamantine (pos a) * adamantly (pos adv)

    References

    * ----

    refractory

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Obstinate and unruly; strongly opposed to something.
  • *
  • * 1836 , ,
  • Mr. Weller knocked at the door, and after a pretty long interval—occupied by the party without, in whistling a tune, and by the party within, in persuading a refractory flat candle to allow itself to be lighted
  • Not affected by great heat.
  • * '>citation
  • (medicine) Difficult to treat.
  • * 1949 , Albert Fields and John Hoesley, " Neck and Shoulder Pain", Calif. Med. , 70(6):478–482.,
  • Many of the vague and refractory cases of neck and shoulder pain and of migraine may be due to cervical disc disease.
  • * 1990 , H. A. Ring et al'', " Vigabatrin: rational treatment for chronic epilepsy", ''J. Neurol. Neurosurg.Psychiatry , 53(12):1051–1055,
  • In 33 adult patients with long standing refractory epilepsy on treatment with one or two standard anti-convulsant drugs,
  • (biology) Incapable of registering a reaction or stimulus.
  • * 1959 , Nobusada Ishiko and Werner R. Loewenstein, " Electrical output of a receptor membrane]", [[w:Science (journal), Science] , 1959, 130:1405-6,
  • The production of a generator potential leaves a refractory state in the receptor membrane
  • * 1970 , S.S. Barold et al'', " Chest wall stimulation in evaluation of patients with implanted ventricular-inhibited demand pacemakers", ''Br. Heart J. , 32(6):783–789,
  • The delineates the pacemaker refractory period after the emission of a pacing stimulus and after the sensing of a spontaneous beat.

    Synonyms

    * (obstinate) contrary (inanimates), fractious

    Derived terms

    * refractorily * refractoriness * refractory period

    Noun

    (refractories)
  • A material or piece of material, such as a brick, that has a very high melting point.