Definition of "obstreperous"

[O]n a clear still summer evening you may hear from the battery of New York the obstreperous peals of broad-mouthed laughter of the Dutch negroes at Communipaw.

1809, Diedrich Knickerbocker [pseudonym; Washington Irving], chapter 7, in A History of New York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), New York, N.Y.: Inskeep & Bradford, […]

This disposition his subsequent life had not tended to change in any considerable degree, though increased knowledge, with much observation, and a little reading, had rendered the gaiety of the young man a very different thing to the obstreperous mirth of the boy.

1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXII, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, page 277

[…] my hopeDwindled into a ghost not fit to copeWith that obstreperous joy success would bring

1855, Robert Browning, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

He developed an obstreperous baritone […] and he made himself rather preponderant, whether he happened to know the song or not.

1918, Henry B. Fuller, “chapter 3”, in On the Stairs

[W]e came to Whittingham. Thence to Newcastle, where an obstreperous horse retarded us for an hour at least.

October 1827, Sir Walter Scott, The Journal of Sir Walter Scott

My dress was draggled, my hat had slipped back, and the kinks and curls of my obstreperous hair were something awful.

1903, Lucy Maud Montgomery, “A Sandshore Wooing”, in Short Stories: 1902-1903

They reviled the committee collectively and singly; bragged that they would shoot Coleman, Truett, Durkee, and some others at sight; flourished weapons, and otherwise became so publicly and noisily obstreperous that the committee decided they needed a lesson.

1915, Stewart Edward White, “chapter 70”, in The Gray Dawn

This is what your boyfriend did, honey. When he was in one of his more obstreperous moods.

2015, 3 min from the start, in Penny Dreadful, season 2, episode 9

He said he loved making movies like Luca Guadagnino’s “A Bigger Splash,” in which his charismatic, obstreperous character, Harry Hawkes, a music producer described by the Italian director as “a pagan fawn,” does a Dionysian dance to the Rolling Stones song “Emotional Rescue.”

2022 October 22, Maureen Dowd, “Ralph Fiennes, Master of Monsters”, in The New York Times‎