The Collaborative International Dictionary
Contumacy \Con"tu*ma*cy\, n.; pl. Contumacies. [L. contumacia, fr. contumax, -acis, insolent; prob. akin to contemnere to despise: cf. F. contumace. Cf. Contemn.]
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Stubborn perverseness; pertinacious resistance to authority.
The bishop commanded him . . . to be thrust into the stocks for his manifest and manifold contumacy.
--Strype. -
(Law) A willful contempt of, and disobedience to, any lawful summons, or to the rules and orders of court, as a refusal to appear in court when legally summoned.
Syn: Stubbornness; perverseness; obstinacy.
Usage examples of "contumacies".
In fact, not a single American reviewer noticed it, and most of them slated the book violently as a mass of heresies and contumacies, a deliberate attack upon all the known and revered truths about the woman question, a headlong assault upon the national decencies.