Word of the Day...

So one of my MANY New Year's resolutions is to improve and expand my vocabulary, which I believe will ultimately help my writing (and just make me sound more intelligent I hope...) ;)

So I've signed up for the "Word of the Day" digest from Dictionary.com. I was inspired to sign up for this digest because I often counsel students who study diligently for the GRE and the LSAT, two standardized tests which require a pretty extensive knowledge of graduate level English vocabulary.

Today's word......

pertinacious \puhr-tin-AY-shuhs\, adjective:

1. Holding or adhering obstinately to any opinion, purpose, or design.
2. Stubbornly or perversely persistent.

"When he made up his little [mind] to have or to do anything, all the king's horses and all the king's men could not change that pertinacious little mind."
-- Louisa May Alcott, Good Wives

"We were presently attacked by tens of thousands of the most bloodthirsty, pertinacious, and huge mosquitoes that I ever saw or read of."
-- H. Rider Haggard, She

The cabman replied: "If you will excuse me, your coat lapels are badly twisted downward, where they have been grasped by the pertinacious New York reporters."
-- David Walton, "Sherlock Holmes's Maker", New York Times, May 2, 1999

Pertinacious is from Latin pertinax, "having a firm hold, obstinate," from per-, "thoroughly" + tenax, "holding fast, tenacious," from tenere, "to hold."