unpliantadj.

1547 R. Record Vrinal of Physick f. 48 For the nature of fyer..is to worke according as the mater is, that hyt findeth, other to molte it, if it be a lyquyde and vnctuouse thynge, other elles to scale it and frette it, if it be harde and vnplyaunte.

1567 W. Painter Palace of Pleasure II. xxvii. f. 270^v Hee determined what soeuer chaunced, to loue hir..and make tender that unpliant will.

1659 J. Evelyn Char. Eng. 44 Ill Courtiers, unplyant, morose and of vulgar address.

1674 Govt. Tongue 178 Men are..prone in all companies to arraign such an unpliant Person, as if he were an enemy to mankind.

1710 Tatler No. 214. ⁋1 These are Persons of a stubborn, unpliant Morality.

a1774 A. Tucker Light of Nature Pursued (1777) III. iv. 243 The love of rectitude becomes a preciseness and rigidity unpliant to the common occasions of life.

1821 J. Baillie Lady G. Baillie in Metrical Legends li The dull unpliant dame refused.

1914 A. L. Cross Hist. Eng. & Greater Brit. xxxiii. 578 The lords lieutenants were directed..to furnish lists of Catholic and Protestant Dissenters who might replace those who proved to be unpliant.

2008 Daily Tel. (Nexis) 24 May (Travel) 10 The British drew the young and unpliant Nawab Siraj-ud-Daula into the Battle of Plassey.

1624 H. Wotton Elements Archit. 89 The Chissell..being so hard an Instrument, and working vpon so vnpliant stuffe.

1635 R. Brathwait tr. M. Silesio Arcadian Princesse iv. 4 Stiffe and unpliant were his Arteries, His acts to others meere Antipodes.

1721 R. Welton tr. T. Alvares de Andrade Sufferings Son of God II. xvii. 465 Like Iron, which is..Un-pliant, when it is not throughly Soften'd by the Forge.

1735 W. Somervile Chace iii. 120 His stiff unpliant Limbs Rooted in Earth, unmov'd..he stands.

1791 W. Cowper tr. Homer Odyssey in Iliad & Odyssey II. xxi. 208 Thou wast not born to bend The unpliant bow, or to direct the shaft.

1825 J. M. Good Study Med. (ed. 2) IV. 330 We..render the rejected muscles torpid and unpliant.

1855 H. H. Milman Hist. Lat. Christianity VI. xiv. x. 610 The beautiful but too regular face, or the hard, but not entirely unpliant form.

1918 W. S. Sparrow Fifth Army in March 1918 viii. 168 To bend like a yew bow, in order not to break like an unpliant stick.

2001 Slate Mag. (Nexis) 10 May A fabric as stiff and unpliant as straw.

1716 A. Pope in tr. Homer Iliad II. vi. Observ. 522 These short Speeches, tho' they may be natural in other Languages, can't appear so well in ours, which is much more stubborn and unpliant.

1751 S. Johnson Rambler No. 173. ⁋12 By him who..enters late into the gay world with an unpliant attention and established habits.

1841 I. D'Israeli Amenities of Lit. (ed. 2) III. 102 His hard-witted and unpliant faculties, busied with the more palpable forms of human nature, when thrown amid the supernatural and the ideal seemed suddenly deserted of their powers.

1894 Emporia (Kansas) Daily Gaz. 12 Feb. Upper classes consider the mastering of their country's unpliant collection of motley codes of etiquette indispensable.

1907 S. N. Patten New Basis of Civilization vii. 156 We call it drudgery and the man condemned to it reverts to a lower kind of creature, unpliant, crudely limited in passions, early matured, and prematurely decayed.

1935 K. Burke Permanence & Change i. iv. 79 Modern historians are fond of praising a writer such as Dante, who broke from the unpliant, catholicized medium of his day.

1990 Praxiology 4–5 17 Actions of ours cannot be planned in an unpliant or stiff way.