DISOBEDIENCE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does disobedience mean? 

• DISOBEDIENCE (noun)
  The noun DISOBEDIENCE has 2 senses:

1. the failure to obey

2. the trait of being unwilling to obey

  Familiarity information: DISOBEDIENCE used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DISOBEDIENCE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The failure to obey

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

disobedience; noncompliance

Hypernyms ("disobedience" is a kind of...):

insubordination; rebelliousness (an insubordinate act)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "disobedience"):

contempt (a willful disobedience to or disrespect for the authority of a court or legislative body)

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

Antonym:

obedience (the act of obeying; dutiful or submissive behavior with respect to another person)

Derivation:

disobedient (not obeying or complying with commands of those in authority)

disobey (refuse to go along with; refuse to follow; be disobedient)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The trait of being unwilling to obey

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("disobedience" is a kind of...):

intractability; intractableness (the trait of being hard to influence or control)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "disobedience"):

badness; mischievousness; naughtiness (an attribute of mischievous children)

Antonym:

obedience (the trait of being willing to obey)

Derivation:

disobedient (unwilling to submit to authority)

 Context examples 

At such moments she found justification for her treason to her standards, for her violation of her own high ideals, and, most of all, for her tacit disobedience to her mother and father.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

A type of program designed to assist individuals and families to address diverse issues such as alcohol and drug abuse, child disobedience, behavioral deviations, misdemeanor and felony.

(Diversion Program, NCI Thesaurus)

I am not sorry you lost them, for you broke the rules, and deserved some punishment for disobedience, was the severe reply, which rather disappointed the young lady, who expected nothing but sympathy.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

But growth demanded disobedience.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of twenty-six and eighteen is to do pretty well; and professing myself moreover convinced that the general's unjust interference, so far from being really injurious to their felicity, was perhaps rather conducive to it, by improving their knowledge of each other, and adding strength to their attachment, I leave it to be settled, by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

On that same occasion I learned, for the first time, from Miss Abbot's communications to Bessie, that my father had been a poor clergyman; that my mother had married him against the wishes of her friends, who considered the match beneath her; that my grandfather Reed was so irritated at her disobedience, he cut her off without a shilling; that after my mother and father had been married a year, the latter caught the typhus fever while visiting among the poor of a large manufacturing town where his curacy was situated, and where that disease was then prevalent: that my mother took the infection from him, and both died within a month of each other.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)