contumacy

1. 1.

   willful refusal to appear before a court or comply with a court order; can result in a finding of contempt of court

   Broaderdisobedience

   law

2. 2.

   obstinate rebelliousness and insubordination; resistance to authority

   Broaderinsubordination

Other forms of contumacy

plural

contumacies·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about contumacy

What does contumacy mean?

contumacy means "willful refusal to appear before a court or comply with a court order; can result in a finding of contempt of court". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in contumacy?

contumacy has 4 syllables: con-tu-ma-cy. The stress falls on "tu".

Is contumacy a common word?

contumacy is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.