If only the window fastenings would prove refractory and hinder them till he could steal behind the engine sheds and reach the big gates!
"Dick Lionheart"
Mary Rowles Jarvis
It appeared that he had become suddenly refractory: they do that sometimes.
"The Desert Valley"
Jackson Gregory
So, too, there must be some level at which the free radiation into outer space chills the hot matter sufficiently to condense its less refractory gases into clouds made up of liquid drops, just as on a cloudy day there is a level in our own atmosphere at which the vapor of water condenses into liquid drops which form the thin shell of clouds that hovers above the earth's surface, while above and below is the gaseous atmosphere.
"A Text-Book of Astronomy"
George C. Comstock