Tenacious

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Dr. Goodword
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Tenacious

Postby Dr. Goodword » Sat Jun 26, 2010 10:55 pm

• tenacious •

Pronunciation: tê-nay-shês • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Adjective

Meaning: 1. Strongly cohesive, holding together firmly, as tenacious clay. 2. Clinging tightly to something, holding on tightly and persistently, not giving up or going away, as a tenacious vine or tenacious memory.

Notes: Today's Good Word has clung tenaciously to its place in the English vocabulary for more than 400 years. The adverb, as you can see, is tenaciously and the noun, tenacity, as to continue a faltering tennis career with tenacity. Of course, today's word is unrelated to tennis.

In Play: Tenacious is probably used more widely in its figurative than its literal senses, but we shouldn't forget to use it literally: "The postman found it difficult to free his shredded pants leg from the tenacious mouth of the dog." Of course, most often we hear this word as a polite substitute for stubborn: "Fairleigh Luce was surprised at how tenaciously members of the Flat Earth Society clung to the notion that named their organization."

Word History: This Good Word comes to us from the Latin adjective tenax (tenac-s) "holding fast" from the verb tenere "to hold", a root that also appears in the Good Word, ostensible. That is the same root in tendril, which we borrowed from French. Latin's source for this word is the PIE root *ten- "to stretch", which also ended up as English thin. The Persian language added a suffix, -r, to this root, producing tar "string", which we find in sitar "three-string", the 3-stringed instrument that became so prominent in Indian music.
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Slava
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Re: TENACIOUS

Postby Slava » Tue Dec 23, 2014 9:50 pm

Well, I'm not going to anthropomorphize nature, but it sure seems like Autumn is rather tenaciously hanging on this year. Mid-fifties and rain on Christmas Eve? I wonder how we are going to pay for this later. Snow in June? :shock:
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.

Perry Lassiter
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Re: TENACIOUS

Postby Perry Lassiter » Wed Dec 24, 2014 1:14 am

I don't know about that, but I perceive you've been prowling in the archives again! (I like it!)
pl

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Slava
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Re: Tenacious

Postby Slava » Wed Dec 24, 2014 7:55 am

Just trying to reduce the backlog of old unanswered posts. Feel free to jump in and help out.
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.

Perry Lassiter
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Re: Tenacious

Postby Perry Lassiter » Fri Dec 26, 2014 12:03 am

I do meander there from time to time, but it's. Even more fun reviewing ancient threads.
pl


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