NEW YORK — By her own admission, Ann Hopkins could be abrasive, vulgar, relentless, and impatient in the office.

She was also one of the best young consultants that Price Waterhouse had in 1982 in its Washington branch, according to managers who put her up for a partnership that year. She had billed more hours than any of her counterparts — all of whom were men — and had helped secure a government contract that was then one of the largest deals in the accounting firm’s history.

Her partnership was denied.

Leaders at Price Waterhouse criticized her as “macho,’’ “difficult,’’ and “aggressive,’’ according to a book she would later write. One male supervisor told Ms. Hopkins that, to have any chance of becoming a partner, she needed to “walk more femininely, talk more femininely, dress more femininely, wear makeup, have her hair styled and wear jewelry.’’

She found vindication in the courts, waging a seven-year battle against Price Waterhouse that resulted in a 6-3 victory in the Supreme Court. The ruling expanded workplace discrimination protections to include gender stereotyping. More recently, her case has figured into the transgender rights movement.

Ms. Hopkins died on June 23 at her home in Washington. She was 74. Her daughter, Tela Gallagher Mathias, said the cause was acute peripheral sensory neuropathy, a rare rapid-onset illness with symptoms that include paralysis.

“My mother — who could be prickly, absolutely — lived in accordance with her values, and one of her most firmly held beliefs was that diversity always, always, always makes something better,’’ Mathias said in an interview.

She added, “You either loved her fiercely or you couldn’t stand being in the same room with her.’’

Ms. Hopkins wrote about her career in a 1996 memoir, “So Ordered: Making Partner the Hard Way,’’ in which she described herself as a person who was as deeply committed to her career as she was to being herself. She liked to smoke and drink beer. In 1974, when she landed an interview at Touche Ross, a major accounting firm, she wore a crisply pressed suit and Ferragamo pumps and rode to the appointment on a Yamaha motorcycle.

But Ms. Hopkins was reluctant to deem herself a civil rights heroine.

“I’m not a leading-edge person,’’ she told the Long Island newspaper Newsday after her final court victory in 1990. In an interview that year with The Boston Globe, she said, “The only thing that makes me remarkable is that I happened to stand up for a particular principle at a particular time.’’