Restive

restive







Y

[res-tiv]



D



–adjective 

1. impatient of control, restraint, or delay, as persons; restless; uneasy.

2. refractory; stubborn.

3. refusing to go forward; balky: a restive horse.  



Synonyms:

1. nervous, unquiet. 

2. recalcitrant, disobedient, obstinate.



Antonyms:

1. patient, quiet. 2. obedient, tractable.





C



restive, restless (adjs.)  

 

Restive has more than one meaning: "stubborn or balky," "restless or fidgety," and "impatient." 



Restless of course is synonymous with the "fidgety" sense and also overlaps somewhat with the 'impatient" sense. 



Perhaps because of this, there has been a good deal of argument over whether restive should be limited to use in the "balky, stubborn" sense, but all the evidence suggests that all three meaning clusters for restive are Standard.   

 



　

The setting is Mumbai. Boyle has always been a restive director, starting in Scotland with "Shallow Grave" and "Trainspotting," before diverting to such noted hot spots as Thailand ("The Beach") and outer space ("Sunshine").



His style is at once distinctive and impersonal; I like the way his characters lunge at experience, although the films themselves hardly dare to ask how much, or how little, that experience has been worth. 



lunge

–noun 

1. a sudden forward thrust, as with a sword or knife; stab.

2. any sudden forward movement; plunge. 

–verb (used without object) 

3. to make a lunge or thrust; move with a lunge. 

–verb (used with object) 

4. to thrust (something) forward; cause to move with a lunge: lunging his [finger] accusingly.  





refractory 

a refractory [child]. 

bigotry

which has an endless bigotry-friendly pocket book to give to [Proposition 8] in California.

every white character in the film is a one-dimensional [bigot],

recalcitrant

Even in this perversely [recalcitrant] world, the Coens find their puppets an endless source of amusement. 



flinty 

flint, esp. in hardness. a flinty [heart].

granite

with granite-[hard] bullet play.

He was a despot with a [heart] of granite.

adamant

It's at that level that Polanski is at his most [adamant]



pertinacious

importunate

importunate [demands] from the children for attention. 

and as he thereafter gravely turns aside the [importunities] of his mistress, a [drab] teacher

Nubile





roil

to render (water, wine, etc.) turbid 

by stirring up sediment. 

that Mr. Montand communicates in the [roil] of indecision in this old fellow as to whether he should

swivel

He swiveled his [chair] around.  

he loosens up his neck and shoulders and swivels his [head]

rotary

[shag] carpets, oversize books bound in white leather, a fat rotary-[dial] telephone. 



rattle

David O. Russell was rattling the [cage] right from the start. 

Meanwhile, Ray [rattles] around the house, resentful at losing his internship.

enjoying the window-[rattling] thunderstorms that he uses to indicate spiritual crisis,



waft

The gentle [breeze] wafted the sound of music to our ears. 

The actress wafted [kisses] to her admirers in the audience.  

most readily [calls] to mind Polanski in his "The Tenant" mode, with [echoes] of Hitchcock, Lynch, Kafka and Dostoyevsky wafting [through] as well 

jejune

a jejune [novel] [diet]  

there is something [jejune], even [juvenile], about the snarl and arrogance of its conceit

Raucous