Intransigent means refusing utterly to compromise. Not stubborn about a detail — immovable on the whole thing.
It belongs to negotiation and to politics, and describing the other side as intransigent is what each of them does in every dispute. It is stronger than obstinate and more formal. The word came from Spanish politics in the nineteenth century, from a faction who would not compromise. The noun is intransigence, and the opposite quality is flexibility or a willingness to give ground.
1adjectiveintransigentRefusing absolutely to change a position or compromise.
“Both sides remained entirely intransigent.”
Intransigent will not come to terms. Latin trānsigō meant to settle or to come to an understanding, and in, not, was put in front of it; the word reached English through Spanish and then French.
Latin
in- — un-, not
Spanish
intransigente
French
intransigeant
English, today
intransigent
Built from
Borrowed from French intransigeant, from Spanish intransigente, from Latin in- (“un-, not”) + trānsigēns, present participle of trānsigō (“to come to an understanding”), from trāns + agō.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA