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Obstinate vs Insist - What's the difference?

obstinate | insist |

As an adjective obstinate

is stubbornly adhering to an opinion, purpose, or course, usually with implied unreasonableness; persistent.

As a verb insist is

to hold up a claim emphatically.

obstinate

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Stubbornly adhering to an opinion, purpose, or course, usually with implied unreasonableness; persistent.
  • * 1686 , , "That men are justly punished for being obstinate in the defence of a fort that is not in reason to be defended",
  • From this consideration it is that we have derived the custom, in times of war, to punish
  • Said of inanimate things not easily subdued or removed.
  • * 1927 , ,
  • Now it happened that Kasturbai had again begun getting haemorrhage, and the malady seemed to be obstinate .

    Synonyms

    * bloody-minded, persistent, stubborn, pertinacious * (not easily subdued) persistent, unrelenting, inexorable * See also

    Derived terms

    * obstinately * obstinateness

    insist

    English

    Alternative forms

    * ensist

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To hold up a claim emphatically.
  • (I am defending her; see a similar example in the context below for comparison.)
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=5 , passage=But Miss Thorn relieved the situation by laughing aloud,
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=70, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Engineers of a different kind , passage=Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist . Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster.}}
  • To demand continually that something happen or be done.
  • To stand (on); to rest (upon); to lean (upon).
  • * 1709 , Venturus Mandey, Synopsis Mathematica Universalis
  • Angles likewise which insist on the Diameter, are all Right Angles.