obduracy

plural obduracies

1. The state of being obdurate, intractable, or stubbornly inflexible.

   True mountain Liberty alone may heal The pain which Custom's obduracies bring.

   1812, Percy Bysshe Shelley, On Leaving London for Wales, lines 5–6

   4 more examples

   By this hand thou, thinkeſt me as farre in the diuels booke, as thou and Falſtaffe, for obduracie and perſiſtancie, let the end trie the man, [...]

   c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Second Part of Henrie the Fourth, […], quarto edition, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Andrew Wise, and William Aspley, published 1600, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]

   It might also serve to condemn the obduracy and hard-heartedness of the Jews, who relented not, when even the earth trembled and the rocks rent.

   1713, Nehemiah Walter, A discourse concerning the wonderfulness of Christ, Boston: Eleazer Phillips, page 156

   She snatched up a stick and hit Cora across the rump with it. The stick was rotten and broke, without having caused Cora to budge an inch. Exasperated at an image of obduracy, the old woman scrabbled up another stick and began whacking at Cora with it[.]

   1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 132

   Chanderpaul's obduracy might have broken lesser men, but Panesar more than matched him for relentlessness.

   2007 June 20, Simon Hughes, “Chanderpaul finally outwitted by master”, in Telegraph.co.uk