tenacious

te·na·cious

adjective \tə-ˈnā-shəs\

Definition of TENACIOUS

1

a : not easily pulled apart : cohesive <a tenacious metal>

b : tending to adhere or cling especially to another substance <tenacious burs>

2

a : persistent in maintaining, adhering to, or seeking something valued or desired <a tenacious advocate of civil rights> <tenacious negotiators>

b : retentive <a tenacious memory>

— te·na·ci·ous·ly adverb

— te·na·cious·ness noun

Examples of TENACIOUS

1. The company has a tenacious hold on the market.
2. <a tenacious trainer, she adheres to her grueling swimming schedule no matter what>
3. But raw capitalism has also proved tenacious, evolving its own means of endlessly restimulating consumption … —Nicholas Fraser, Harper's, November 2003
4. This “Southern Operation” would seal off China from outside help, thus underwriting victory in Japan's frustrating four-year war against Chiang Kai-shek's feckless but tenacious Chinese army. —David M. Kennedy, Atlantic, March 1999
5. We have been nominally democratic for so long that we presume it is our natural condition rather than the product of persistent effort and tenacious responsibility. —Benjamin R. Barber, Harper's, November 1993
6. Some people claim that by election day this year François Mitterrand had very little power besides the power of his own tenacious, authoritative, and austere persona. —Jane Kramer, New Yorker, 30 May 1988

Origin of TENACIOUS

Latin tenac-, tenax tending to hold fast, from tenēre to hold

First Known Use: 1607

Related to TENACIOUS

Synonyms

dogged, insistent, patient, persevering, pertinacious, persistent

Antonyms

nonadhesive

Related Words

assured, certain, dedicated, determined, firm, hell-bent, intent, positive, resolute, resolved, single-minded, sure; adamant, bullheaded, dogged, hardened, hardheaded, headstrong, implacable, indurate, mulish, obdurate, obstinate, opinionated, peevish, pertinacious, perverse, pigheaded, self-willed, stiff-necked, stubborn, unregenerate, unyielding, willful (or wilful); unfaltering, unhesitating, unwavering; resistant, wayward, wrongheaded; constant, devoted, faithful, good, loyal, staunch (also stanch), steadfast, steady, true; indomitable, unconquerable; hard, inflexible, relentless, stern, unbending, unflinching, unrelenting

Near Antonyms

quitting, surrendering, yielding; faltering, hesitant, hesitating, irresolute, vacillating, wavering; disloyal, faithless, false, fickle, inconstant, perfidious, traitorous, treacherous

See Synonym Discussion at strong

Rhymes with TENACIOUS

audacious, bodacious, capacious, cetaceous, crustaceous, curvaceous, drupaceous, edacious, fallacious, flirtatious, fugacious, hellacious, herbaceous, loquacious, mendacious, micaceous, pomaceous, predaceous, pugnacious, rapacious, rosaceous, sagacious, salacious, sebaceous, sequacious, setaceous, testaceous, tufaceous, ungracious, veracious, vinaceous, voracious

te·na·cious

adjective \tə-ˈnā-shəs\   (Medical Dictionary)

Medical Definition of TENACIOUS

: tending to adhere or cling especially to another substance : viscous <coughed up 150 cc. of thick tenacious sputum—Journal of the American Medical Association>