pertinaciously

English

WOTD – 9 July 2007

Etymology

From pertinacious +‎ -ly, from Latin pertināx, from per- (“very”) + tenāx (“tenacious”), from teneō (“I hold”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌpɜː.təˈneɪ.ʃəs.li/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌpɝːtənˈeɪʃəsli/

• Audio (US)

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Adverb

pertinaciously (comparative more pertinaciously, superlative most pertinaciously)

1. In a stubbornly resolute manner; tenaciously holding one's course of action or opinion.

   Synonyms: doggedly, obstinately, persistently, resolutely, stubbornly, unyieldingly

   • 1601, William Barlow, A defence of the articles of the Protestants religion, Article 3, Answer, page 72:

     Saint Augustine makes this difference betweene an heretike, and him that beleeves an heretike. The first begets or followes an errour pertinaciously.

   • 1701, John LeClerc, edited by Samuel Buckley, The Harmony of the Evangelists, London, page 62:

     They shall therefore suffer punishment who reject this heavenly Light, and continue pertinaciously fix'd in those deadly principles which extinguish all knowledge of Virtue.

   • 1848 March, Edgar A[llan] Poe, Eureka: A Prose Poem, New York, N.Y.: Geo[rge] P[almer] Putnam, of late firm of “Wiley & Putnam,” […], →OCLC, page 100:

     No astronomical fallacy is more untenable, and none has been more pertinaciously adhered to, than that of the absolute illimitation of the Universe of Stars.

   • 1873, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], Charles Dudley Warner, chapter XLII, in The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-day, Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company, published 1874, →OCLC:

     I work with might and main against his Immigration Bill—as pertinaciously and as vindictively, indeed, as he works against our University.

   • 1952 September 29, “Names Make News: Charlie Chaplin”, in Time‎^[1], New York, N.Y.: Time Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2010-11-25:

     If the great comedian [Charlie Chaplin] wishes to stay here in the country whose citizenship he has so pertinaciously retained, he will be less harassed and very welcome.

   • September 2001, Waldemar Kowalski, “Converts to Catholicism and Reformed Franciscans in Early Modern Poland”, in Church History, volume 70, number 3, page 495:

     In Greater Poland (Wielkopolska) the middle class and part of the local gentry clung pertinaciously to Lutheranism.

Related terms

• impertinence
• pertinacious
• pertinaciousness
• pertinacity
• pertinence

Translations

in a stubbornly resolute manner

• Finnish: jääräpäisesti (fi)
• Polish: nieustępliwie

References

• pertinaciously in An American Dictionary of the English Language, by Noah Webster, 1828.
• “pertinaciously”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., 1989.