Tenacious

//təˈneɪʃəs// adj

adj ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Clinging to an object or surface; adhesive.
  2. 2
    Unwilling to yield or give up; dogged.
  3. 3
    Holding together; cohesive.

    "The quagmiry road, trodden into tenacious paste by the long file of human beings ahead […]"

  4. 4
    Having a good memory; retentive.
Adjective
  1. 1
    sticking together wordnet
  2. 2
    good at remembering wordnet
  3. 3
    stubbornly unyielding wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
adhesivepertinaciousretentiveadamantadamantineadherent

Example

More examples

"He's a tenacious guy who always manages to come out on top. He's the kind of guy who can turn any situation to his advantage."

Etymology

From Latin tenāx (“holding fast, clinging”), from tenēre (“to hold”), + -ious.

Related phrases

give up

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