Pester
noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A bother or nuisance.
"By now I presumed I had become a real pester."
- 1 To bother, harass, or annoy persistently. transitive
"He pestered me with questions."
- 2 annoy persistently wordnet
- 3 To crowd together thickly. intransitive, obsolete, transitive
"That which eſpecialleſt nouriſht the moſt prime pleaſure in me, was after a ſtorme when they were driuen inſwarmes, and lay close peſtred together as thicke as they could packe; the next day following, if it were faire, they would cloud the whole skie with canuas, by ſpreading their drabled ſailes in the full clue abroad a drying, and make a brauer ſhew with them, then ſo many banners and ſtreamers diſplayed againſt the Sunne on a mountaine top."
Example
More examples"We will pester him with heaps of questions."
Etymology
In the senses of “overcrowd (a place)” and “impede (a person)”: from Middle French and Old French empestrer (“encumber”), influenced by English pest. The modern sense is an extension of the sense “infest”. Comparable to English construction pest + -er (used to form frequentative verbs).
Related phrases
More for "pester"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.