refractoriness
(rɪˈfræktərɪnɪs)
[f. refractory a. + -ness.]
The quality or state of being refractory.
1. a. Of persons: Obstinacy, perversity; stubborn disobedience or resistance to some authority or control. (Common in 17th and 18th c.)
| a 1642 Sir W. Monson Naval Tracts ii. (1704) 295/1 Those that repine at Princes Actions out of Stubbornness, or Refractoriness. 1686 A. Horneck Crucif. Jesus xvii. 497 Your refractoriness to reformation and amendment makes you unworthy. 1752 Carte Hist. Eng. III. 677 They now showed their disaffection as well as refractoriness in refusing to give thanks. 1807 Edin. Rev. X. 96 He was..abused for his refractoriness in this particular. 1859 Hawthorne Marb. Faun ii. (1878) 25 Donatello's refractoriness..had evidently cost him something. |
| fig. 1658 A. Fox Wurtz' Surg. i. viii. 33 If Wounds in the dressing be abused..what can be expected, but Natures unwillingness and refractoriness..? |
b. Power of resistance
to some influence.
| 1805 Foster Ess. i. iv. (1806) I. 62 Unless you had brought into the world some extraordinary refractoriness to the influence of evil. 1886 E. R. Lankester Advancem. Sc. (1890) 148 A state of refractoriness to the poison of rabies. |
c. Physiol. Temporary inability to respond fully to nervous or sexual stimuli.
| 1932 W. Burridge Excitability xxi. 172 Refractoriness is here defined as a condition of inexcitability of an excitable tissue which follows the receipt of an adequate stimulus. 1937 Wilson Bull. XLIX. 251 Birds invariably passed the climax of activity after a time and underwent regression. This was due to ‘throwing out of gear’ or development of refractoriness at some part of the sexual mechanism. 1949 Ibid. LXI. 221 This refractoriness must ‘wear off’ before external stimuli can induce a new gonadal activation. 1963 S. Ochs in E. E. Selkurt Physiol. ii. 28 In the alpha group of A fibers of the frog sciatic nerve, this period of absolute refractoriness lasts only a little longer than 1 msec. |
2. Of things: Resistance to treatment or manipulation,
esp. to the action of heat.
| 1839 Ure Dict. Arts 299 Its refractoriness allows of a harder glaze being applied to the ware formed from it. 1870 Academy 12 Feb. 122 The vigour and skill with which they coped with its [granite's] refractoriness. 1893 Sir R. Ball Story of Sun 289 The two conditions of refractoriness and low atomic weight. |