Skip to main content
hidebound

hidebound

3 9.9
Not willing to accept new ideas because of old traditions
  • adjective
  • /ˈhaɪdˌbaʊnd/
  • Offensive
translation icon : retrógrado
  • His hidebound views on education make it difficult for him to accept new teaching methods.
  • hidebound bureaucracy
  • hidebound traditions
  • hidebound conservative

They're selfish, they are hidebound, they are reactionary, they are uneducated, whatever it is.

Autoplay Next

Examples

  • Linh's replacement, Premier Do Muoi, is, according to conventional wisdom, a hidebound conservative.

    Academic text (1992)
  • But as more corporations look for new ideas within their hidebound bureaucracies, we're likely to see continued effusive rhetoric about internal entrepreneurs.

    Blog text (10)
  • I so admire a man not hidebound by the dictates of fashion.

  • Rosin went on, "The old model of command and control, with one leader holding all the decision-making power, is considered hidebound."

    Blog text (20)
  • We're much too open-minded, secure in each other, and naturally gregarious to be hidebound by the 'facts.'

    Blog text (6)
  • Clearly, the scientific community, not the GOP, is fraught with dangerous, hidebound ideologues.

    Blog text (12)
  • He needed to transform the entrenched corporate culture, which had become hidebound and overly bureaucratic.

    Blog text (32)
  • Apparently, doctrinaire Marxists are just as unimaginative, rigid, and ideologically hidebound as the local Chamber of Commerce; who knew?

    Blog text (34)
  • If those men declined to connect informally with women but continued to do so with their male colleagues, we'd have a culturally hidebound system that structurally excludes women.

    Blog text (6)
  • But despite his successes on services ranging from bus routes to wastewater management to the upkeep of the parks, Goldsmith had scant luck in reforming the hidebound police department and the schools, which are under an independent board of education.

    Academic text (2002)

Synonyms

narrow-minded
vshidebound
25 5.1

Not willing to accept ideas or ways different from their own

is more tied to following convention and stubborn conservatism than mere intolerance
closed-minded
vshidebound
9 5.2

Not willing to accept new ideas or different opinions

is more about loyalty to custom and rigid conservative views causing resistance
traditionalist
vshidebound
6 6.5

Holding strongly to old customs and resisting change

is more negative and stresses stubborn intolerance rather than mere long-held views
unreconstructed
vshidebound
2 9.5

Still holding old beliefs and unwilling to change

is about following convention and stubborn narrow conservatism rather than merely being old
unregenerate
vshidebound
1 9.9

Refusing to change beliefs or show regret, even when wrong

is more about stubborn conservatism from convention rather than moral defiance

Antonyms

251 4.8

Supporting new social changes in politics to make society fairer

80 3.7

Ready to listen to new ideas and accept different views

Compounds

8.8

A way of doing things that refuses change and new ideas

9.6

A very old-fashioned strict opinion that refuses new ideas

How Inflexible

intransigent
8 8.1
rigid
70 4.2
hidebound
  • Offensive
3 9.9
conservative
306 4.4
traditional
994 1.5

Surface Forms

hidebound positive

Morphology

hidebound = hide + bound (opaque) = hide + bound

Although built from 'hide' + 'bound', the current meaning 'stubbornly conservative' is a metaphorical shift from the literal image of being 'tied by the hide' and is not directly inferable by learners.

Etymology

Hidebound comes from hide ('skin') and bound ('tied'), as if something is tied so tight by its skin that it cannot bend. So hidebound now describes a person or idea that is too stiff and unwilling to change.