Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Holding tenaciously or stubbornly to a purpose, opinion, or course of action.
- adjective Extremely persistent or unyielding.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Unyielding; persistent; obstinate; especially, resolute, as in holding or adhering to an opinion, purpose, design, course of action, etc.
- Synonyms Unyielding, dogged: the word is rarely used now except in condemnation. See
obstinate .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Holding or adhering to any opinion, purpose, or design, with obstinacy; perversely persistent; obstinate
- adjective Resolute; persevering; constant; steady.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Holding
tenaciously to anopinion orpurpose . - adjective
Stubbornly resolute ortenacious .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective stubbornly unyielding
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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This proposition continued to be supported with a degree of earnestness which its opponents termed pertinacious, but not a single opinion was changed.
Life and Times of Washington Schroeder, J. F. 1903
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This proposition continued to be supported with a degree of earnestness which its opponents termed pertinacious, but not a single opinion was changed.
Life and Times of Washington, Volume 2 Revised, Enlarged, and Enriched John Frederick Schroeder 1852
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This proposition continued to be supported with a degree of earnestness which its opponents termed pertinacious, but not a single opinion was changed.
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"Suspendeds, '' [FN#446] and Al-Mutalammis the" pertinacious "satirist, friend and intimate with Tarafah of the" Prize Poem. "
Arabian nights. English Anonymous 1855
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A mule is stubborn, and may manifest glimmering adumbrations of cunning; but the husky can be characterized as pertinacious, deceitful, sharp, and, above all, well capable of deductive reasoning.
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If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority respecting the best mode of conducting it, the majority, in order that something may be done, must conform to the views of the minority; and thus the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater ….
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Since its founding in 1969, the Man Booker prize for fiction regularly outrages discerning readers by the pertinacious imbecility of its judges' choices for the shortlist—though, just as often, the actual winner has pleased the same readers.
Time, Again, for Posh Bingo Paul Levy 2011
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The most pertinacious sophipathologies of the twenty-second century CE were mutually exclusive, leading to the easy formation of ideological splinter groups.
sit back and i'll tell you we're living in fear hawkwing_lb 2009
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Last Friday the ever pertinacious Ms. Sparky scooped everyone by reporting that according to a recent memo from Col. Nolan of the U.S.
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Last Friday the ever pertinacious Ms. Sparky scooped everyone by reporting that according to a recent memo from Col. Nolan of the U.S.
sera commented on the word pertinacious
I bet this is related to tenacious. Maybe that will help me separate it from all of those other per-par-pen words:
pernicious
parsimonious
penurious
perspicacious
persnickety (well, that one's easy) - hey, I'm just finding that pernickety is a word! What the heck? Oh, it means the same as persnickety, just not the "colloquial" meaning. Hmm.
impecunious
August 15, 2007
slumry commented on the word pertinacious
one for the list
July 16, 2015