a. Having a strong, vigorous or determined mind.
1791. Boswell, Johnson, an. 1778 (1904), II. 252. A certain nobleman … was one of the strongest-minded men that ever lived.
1825. Coleridge, Aids Refl. (1848), I. 166. That pious, learned, strong-minded, and single-hearted Jew.
1864. G. A. Lawrence, Maurice Dering, II. 245. Stronger-minded women than my little Georgie have gone down before the fascination that that unhappy man seemed able to exercise.
b. Applied (chiefly with disparaging implication) to women who have or affect the qualities of mind and character regarded as distinctively masculine, or who take up an attitude of revolt against the restrictions and disabilities imposed on their sex by law and custom.
1854. Mrs. Gaskell, North & South, xlv. And then, what with Sholto playing with the fire, and the baby crying, you’ll begin to wish for a strong-minded woman, equal to any emergency.
1862. Miss Braddon, Lady Audley, xvi. I don’t want a strong-minded woman, who writes books and wears green spectacles.
1878. Besant & Rice, Celia’s Arb., vi. They had not become strong-minded; they did not sit on School Boards and sigh for Female Suffrage.
1887. R. N. Carey, Uncle Max, xvi. 129. She had evidently got it into her head that I was a strong-minded young woman.
Hence Strong-mindedness.
1826. Examiner, 5 Nov., 719. As a vade-mecum of learning, truth, and strong-mindedness … this selection from Bayle is most judiciously made.
1859. Mrs. Carlyle, Lett., III. 1. There is a growing taste for fastness, or, still worse, for strong-mindedness.
