What's the difference between headstrong and tenacious?

Headstrong


Definition:

  • (a.) Not easily restrained; ungovernable; obstinate; stubborn.
  • (a.) Directed by ungovernable will, or proceeding from obstinacy.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) She went straight into the theatre, where she earned a reputation for being headstrong and undirectable.
  • (2) Vinterberg's version stars Carey Mulligan as headstrong Bathsheba Everdene, while Michael Sheen, Tom Sturridge and Matthias Schoenarts play the contrasting suitors who jockey for her attention.
  • (3) Despite the fact that Wall Street and the City of London seemed to be dominated by headstrong young men with far too much money and far too little sense, the chance of a catastrophic blow-out was viewed as alarmist nonsense.
  • (4) In 1969, a screening of Paint Your Wagon wasn't complete without the chance to stop halfway, have a breather and ponder whether or not Lee Marvin would manage to tame Jean Seberg's headstrong ways come the second act.
  • (5) When the tapes went up on Channel 4's coverage, Mick Fitzgerald was a little headstrong, stumbling a little as he told Balding, "I know you did the Olympics last summer, but this is our Olympics, and we're lucky we do it every year", lesser presenters would have hesitated.
  • (6) Succoured by Rwanda , Nkunda nevertheless proved himself to be a headstrong and unreliable negotiating partner with the regional powers and with the government of Congo's president, Joseph Kabila, who Nkunda openly talked about toppling.
  • (7) Prachi was quiet, nine years old and painfully shy; Tanuja more headstrong, an independent 11-year-old.
  • (8) It took three auditions for her to win the part of headstrong 15-year-old Mia in Arnold's second feature, Fish Tank , but already her fierce, touching portrayal has earned her a best British performance award at this year's Edinburgh film festival, and helped win Arnold the jury prize at Cannes – the same gong she had scooped in 2006 for her debut feature, Red Road.
  • (9) The truth is, the current crisis results not from too much democracy but from long-standing failure to reform an oligarchic constitution which left the Group with a board unable to rein in a headstrong management.
  • (10) And now – surprised by his own headstrong change of direction – Stewart is giving it up to join a House of Commons whose ­reputation has been trashed by the ­expenses scandal.
  • (11) He was idiosyncratic, and headstrong, out of fashion, vaguely otherwordly.
  • (12) A busy and regular film actor, he headed the bomb-disposal squad in the Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger wartime drama The Small Back Room (1949), and in The Go-Between (1970) played the father of a headstrong young woman (Julie Christie).
  • (13) As a very young child, she was wilful and headstrong, constantly questioning everything.
  • (14) On screen, she excels at headstrong outsiders and exuding a steely single-mindedness.
  • (15) If only my headstrong sister Lydia had not eloped with Mr Wickham, all would be well."
  • (16) In Sense and Sensibility, a tale of thwarted love, a girl's headstrong feelings misguide her.
  • (17) On the surface this seems like a particularly nasty slice of family life made public, a bullying parent who can’t control his headstrong daughter.
  • (18) They tend to be more idealistic, headstrong, and social media-savvy than their elder counterparts.

Tenacious


Definition:

  • (a.) Holding fast, or inclined to hold fast; inclined to retain what is in possession; as, men tenacious of their just rights.
  • (a.) Apt to retain; retentive; as, a tenacious memory.
  • (a.) Having parts apt to adhere to each other; cohesive; tough; as, steel is a tenacious metal; tar is more tenacious than oil.
  • (a.) Apt to adhere to another substance; glutinous; viscous; sticking; adhesive.
  • (a.) Niggardly; closefisted; miserly.
  • (a.) Holding stoutly to one's opinion or purpose; obstinate; stubborn.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The insurgency is still raging, and the president will have to inspire the security forces, choose generals to lead the fight, and plot tactics to beat a tenacious and experienced enemy.
  • (2) RSL trying to get their own flowing passing game going now, but the Timbers looking tenacious in midfield to break it up.
  • (3) Another factor is the decline of caste, the tenacious Indian social hierarchy which still determines the status of hundreds of millions.
  • (4) A tenacious Anabaena epiphyte was also discovered inhabiting the surfaces of root nodules.
  • (5) His family belonged to the Ghanchi caste, low down on the tenacious social hierarchy that still often defines status in India, and had little money.
  • (6) Another facilitating factor which is discussed is that blowing the nose may catch tenacious mucus which has partly passed through the ostium by the ciliary activity in the sinus.
  • (7) Malta continued to defend tenaciously after half-time and Italy struggled to create openings, despite their overwhelming dominance.
  • (8) However, attempts to cultivate M phi for morphological and functional studies have often been compromised because M phi adhere rapidly and tenaciously to cultureware.
  • (9) The exudate, apparent as early as 48 hours after inoculation, drained from the cervix as a tenacious, mucopurulent discharge for several days, then rapidly disappeared.
  • (10) Thirty-four patients, 21 male and 13 female, with chronic asthma and tenacious mucoid expectoration were studied regarding clinical parameters, PEF, airway resistance and sputum viscosity measured according to the n.m.r.
  • (11) Mark Lewis and Charlotte Harris, two tenacious solicitors, were followed around, together with their children.
  • (12) The cholla cacti are particularly tenacious in the manner in which the spines stay embedded in the skin.
  • (13) The action of complement is considered in terms of a more tenacious bond formed between effector and target cells.
  • (14) Two immunologically distinct proteins of 55 and 26 kd, which are tenaciously, but noncovalently associated with Oxytricha macronuclear DNA termini, have been purified.
  • (15) So they fought tenaciously, first over prices and then over privatisation.
  • (16) But the Justice Department attorney Ron Wiltsie, who impugned Xenakis’s credentials in tenacious cross-examination, said Dhiab had committed “five assaults since April 2014”.
  • (17) The observation that glucose phosphates bind to the Li+ complex of phosphoglucomutase some 900 times more tenaciously than to the corresponding Mg2+ complex could provide a partial rationale for the lack of reactivity of the Le+ form of the enzyme.
  • (18) "For rural areas, farmers, dalits (those at the bottom of India's tenacious social hierarchy), weak and the pained, this government is for them.
  • (19) [Small Talk, like the all-action investigative journalist that it is, tenaciously refuses to let the question go] And you're other half, she's an Irish pool international?
  • (20) Isis will then be reduced to what it once was: a very brutal and tenacious Iraqi militant organisation.