Persist

//pɚˈsɪst// verb

verb ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To go on stubbornly or resolutely. intransitive

    "There is a way in which Britain is certain to have war and its horrors and calamities; it is this--by persisting in her present course of unpreparedness, her apathy, unintelligence, and blindness, and in her disregard of the warnings of the most ordinary political insight, as well as of the example of history."

  2. 2
    be persistent, refuse to stop wordnet
  3. 3
    To repeat an utterance. intransitive
  4. 4
    be in a certain place and not leave wordnet
  5. 5
    To continue to exist. intransitive

    "Much of this prejudice, indeed, persists; for instance, in the heavy handicappings with which insurance companies saddle their West Indian policies, […]"

Show 3 more definitions
  1. 6
    continue to exist wordnet
  2. 7
    To continue to be; to remain. copulative, intransitive, obsolete
  3. 8
    To cause to persist; make permanent. transitive

    "This would not be saved after his session terminates because we don't have an actual user identity to allow us to persist the settings."

Synonyms

All synonyms
persevereendurehold onlastpersevereprevail

Example

More examples

"You should persist in your efforts to learn English."

Etymology

From Middle French persister (Modern French persister), from Latin persistere, from per- + sistere (“to stand”).

Related phrases

persist downpersist it down

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.