Adjective

(en adjective)

Opposing; offering resistance (to).

* 1819 , Lord Byron, Don Juan , II.108:

There, breathless, with his digging nails he clung / Fast to the sand, lest the returning wave, / From whose reluctant roar his life he wrung, / Should suck him back to her insatiate grave [...].

* 2008 , Kern Alexander et al., The World Trade Organization and Trade in Services , p. 222:

They are reluctant to the inclusion of a necessity test, especially of a horizontal nature, and emphasize, instead, the importance of procedural disciplines [...].

Not wanting to take some action; unwilling.

She was reluctant to lend him the money

Adjective

(en adjective)

Stubbornly persistent, generally in wrongdoing; refusing to reform or repent.

* Hooker

The very custom of evil makes the heart obdurate against whatsoever instructions to the contrary.

* Shakespeare

Art thou obdurate , flinty, hard as steel, / Nay, more than flint, for stone at rain relenteth?

* 1818 , ,"The Revolt of Islam", canto 4, stanza 9, lines 1486-7:

But custom maketh blind and obdurate

The loftiest hearts.

* {{quote-news

, year=2011 , date=February 12 , author=Les Roopanarine , title=Birmingham 1 - 0 Stoke , work=BBC citation , page= , passage=An injury-time goal from Nikola Zigic against an obdurate Stoke side gave Birmingham back-to back Premier League wins for the first time in 14 months.}}

(obsolete) Physically hardened, toughened.