Trending: perseverance

Lookups spiked 2,300% on February 18, 2021

Why are people looking up perseverance?

Perseverance was among our top lookups on February 18th, 2021, after NASA’s rover of this name was successfully placed on Mars.

What does perseverance mean?

We define perseverance as “continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition : the action or condition or an instance of persevering.” In English use since the 14th century, the word may be traced to the Latin roots of per-, meaning “through,” and severus, meaning “severe.”

Citations

As soon as I had regaled myself I went in quest of those kind ladies, whom I was very impatient to see; and, with some difficulty and perseverance, I found them at May's-hill, Greenwich.
— Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, 1794

Trend Watch is a data-driven report on words people are looking up at much higher search rates than normal. While most trends can be traced back to the news or popular culture, our focus is on the lookup data rather than the events themselves.


Name That Flower

How Strong Is Your Vocabulary?

Test your vocabulary with our 10-question quiz!

TAKE THE QUIZ
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.

Pick the best words!

PLAY
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!