a. [UN-1 7.]
1. Not bending readily or easily; stiff.
1624. Wotton, Archit., 89. The Chissell … being so hard an Instrument, and working vpon so vnpliant stuffe.
1720. Welton, Suffer. Son of God, II. xvii. 465. Like Iron, which is … unpliant, when it is not throughly softened by the Forge.
1735. Somerville, Chase, III. 120. His stiff unpliant Limbs Rooted in Earth, unmov’d … he stands.
1791. Cowper, Odyss., XXI. 208. Thou wast not born to bend The unpliant bow, or to direct the shaft.
1825. Good, Study Med. (ed. 2), IV. 330. We … render the dejected muscles torpid and unpliant.
1855. Milman, Lat. Chr., XIV. x. VI. 610. The beautiful but too regular face, or the hard, but not entirely unpliant form.
2. Unyielding, obstinate, stubborn.
1659. Evelyn, Char. Eng., 40. 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.
1768–74. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1834), II. 591. The love of rectitude becomes a preciseness and rigidity unpliant to the common occasions of life.
1821. Joanna Baillie, Metr. Leg., Lady G. B., li. The dull unpliant dame refused.
1822. Good, Study Med., IV. 195. Parodynia Implastica. Unpliant Labour.
3. Not easily adapted or managed.
1717. Addison, Ovid’s Met., III. Notes. The short speeches … which make the Latin very natural, cannot appear so well in our language, which is more stubborn and unpliant.
1751. Johnson, Rambler, No. 173, ¶ 12. By him who … enters late into the gay world with an unpliant attention and established habits.
