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obstreperous

/əbˈstɹɛpəɹəs/adjective

obstreperous is an adjective meaning “Attended by, or making, a loud and tumultuous noise; boisterous” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled O-B-S-T-R-E-P-E-R-O-U-S and has 4 syllables, and it appears about once in every 23 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does obstreperous mean?

adjective

  1. 1

    Attended by, or making, a loud and tumultuous noise; boisterous.

  2. 2

    Stubbornly defiant; disobedient; resistant to authority or control (whether in a noisy manner or not).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce obstreperous?

  • UK /əbˈstɹɛp.əɹ.əs/
  • UK /ɒbˈstɹɛp.əɹ.əs/
  • US /əbˈstɹɛpəɹəs/

Obstreperous has 4 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-obstreperous.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of obstreperous

  • more obstreperous comparative
  • most obstreperous superlative

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is obstreperous?

Obstreperous appears about once in every 23 million words in written English, the 145,125th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Obstreperous in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Germanungestüm, tumultartig, dröhnend, polternd, polterhaft (attended by, or making a loud and tumultuous…), aufsässig (stubbornly defiant)
Portugueseespalhafatoso (attended by, or making a loud and tumultuous…), recalcitrante (stubbornly defiant)
Frenchrécalcitrant (stubbornly defiant)
Spanishestrepitoso (stubbornly defiant)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does obstreperous come from?

Borrowed from Latin obstreperus, first attested circa 17th c. Compare obstropulous.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).