tenacious

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 21, 2024 is: tenacious \tuh-NAY-shus\ adjective Something described as tenacious cannot easily be stopped or pulled apart; in other words, it is firm or strong. Tenacious can also describe something—such as a myth—that continues or persists for a long time, or someone who is determined to do something. // Caleb was surprised by the crab’s tenacious grip. // Once Linda has decided on a course of action, she can be very tenacious when it comes to seeing it through. [See the entry >](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tenacious) Examples: "I put up a nesting box three years ago and nailed it to an oak tree. Beth and Fiona told me the next box location was ideal: seven feet up, out of view of walkways, and within three feet of the lower branches of a tenacious old fuchsia tree." — Amy Tan, The Backyard Bird Chronicles, 2024 Did you know? For the more than 400 years that tenacious has been a part of the English language, it has adhered closely to its Latin antecedent: tenāx, an adjective meaning "holding fast," "clinging," or "persistent." Almost from the first, tenacious could suggest either literal adhesion or figurative [stick-to-itiveness](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stick-to-itiveness). [Sandburs](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sandbur) are tenacious, and so are athletes who don't let defeat get them down. We use tenacious of a good memory, too—one that has a better than average capacity to hold information. But you can also have too much of a good thing: the addition in Latin of the prefix per- ("thoroughly") to tenāx led to the English word [pertinacious](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pertinacious), meaning "perversely persistent." You might use pertinacious for the likes of rumors and spam calls, for example.