mule-stubborn

adjective

Synonym of stubborn as a mule.

Meanings

adjectivemule-stubborn (comparative more mule-stubborn, superlative most mule-stubborn)

comparative more mule-stubborn · superlative most mule-stubborn

  1. Synonym of stubborn as a mule.

    Your papa’s mule-stubborn. If any man can beat out a mountain, it’s him.

    2025, CreepCast - Journal of a Coal Miner's Daughter
    5 more examples

    A bulldog is the most sociable, most lovable thing in the world. They love to play, They are mule stubborn, but not disobedient.

    1955, John A. Saylor, M.D., Time: The Offended Bulldog, page 8

    He scowled at Linn, his own deep scratches to show, a mule-stubborn man whom she again hated furiously.

    1959, The Saturday Evening Post

    He’s not just smart, you know.. He’s mule stubborn, too. He’ll keep worrying it until it gives or he does. It might not be this melte cycle, or even next, but he’ll do it.

    1979, Analog Science Fiction, page 148

    Papa says if you don’t watch it people will force you one way or the other, into doing what they think you should do, or into just being mule-stubborn and doing the opposite out of spite.

    1989, Kesey, Ken, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, page 179

    I had to come on to him. He was the most beautiful thing Pd ever seen, and I’m mule-stubborn about getting what I want.

    2017, Koontz, Dean, chapter 6, in The Silent Corner

    Synonyms: stubborn as a mule

Synonyms & antonyms

adjectiveSynonym of stubborn as a mule.

Cite this entry
APA

mule-stubborn. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mule-stubborn

MLA

“mule-stubborn.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mule-stubborn. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “mule-stubborn,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mule-stubborn.

Source: mule-stubborn on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.