pertinacious

From pertinace +‎ -ious, from Old French pertinace, from Latin pertinax, from per- (“very”) + tenax (“tenacious”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˌpɜːtɪˈneɪʃəs/

• Audio (Southern England):

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• (US) enPR: pûr-tn-ā'shəs, IPA^(key): /pɝtn̩ˈeɪʃəs/
• Rhymes: -eɪʃəs

pertinacious (comparative more pertinacious, superlative most pertinacious)

1. Holding tenaciously to an opinion or purpose.
   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 22, in The History of Pendennis. , volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, , published 1849–1850, →OCLC:

     When that divine took his leave, not a little discomfited and amazed at the pertinacious obstinacy of the women, Laura repeated her embraces and arguments with tenfold fervour to Helen, who felt that there was a great deal of cogency in most of the latter.

   • 1884, Henry James, “The Path of Duty”, in The English Illustrated Magazine, 2(15): 240-256:

     He would really have to make up his mind to care for his wife or not to care for her. What would Lady Vandeleur say to one alternative, and what would little Joscelind say to the other? That is what it was to have a pertinacious father and to be an accommodating son.

   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

     For, whether they were attracted by the lantern, or by the unaccustomed smell of a white man for which they had been waiting for the last thousand years or so, I know not; but certainly we were presently attacked by tens of thousands of the most blood-thirsty, pertinacious, and huge mosquitoes that I ever saw or read of.

2. Stubbornly resolute or tenacious.
   • 1678, Izaak Walton, The life of Dr. Sanderson, late Bishop of Lincoln (London: Printed for Richard Marriot) :

     ne of the Dissenters, which I could, but forbear, to name appeared to Dr. Sanderson to be so bold, so troublesome, and so illogical in the dispute, as forced patient Dr. Sanderson, who was then Bishop of Lincoln, and a moderator with other Bishops, to say, with an unusual earnestness, "That he had never met with a man of more pertinacious confidence, and less abilities, in all his conversation."

• See also Thesaurus:obstinate

• pertinaciousness
• pertinacity