persist

English

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /pɚˈsɪst/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /pəˈsɪst/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪst
• Hyphenation: per‧sist

Verb

persist (third-person singular simple present persists, present participle persisting, simple past and past participle persisted)

1. (intransitive) To go on stubbornly or resolutely.
   • 1912, Norman Angell, Peace Theories and the Balkan War‎^[1]:

     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. (intransitive) To repeat an utterance.
3. (intransitive) To continue to exist.
   • 1868, The British and Foreign Medico-chirurgical Review, page 238:

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

   • 2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: A Natural History, page 139:

     Throughout the period, toothy giants persisted in the oceans. Perhaps the most spectacular was the megalodon shark.

4. (intransitive, copulative, obsolete) To continue to be; to remain.
5. (computing, transitive) To cause to persist; make permanent.
   • 2006, Marco Bellinaso, ASP.NET 2.0 Website Programming:

     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.

   • 2009, Alistair Croll, Sean Power, Complete Web Monitoring:

     While hashtags aren't formally part of Twitter, some clients, such as Tweetdeck, will persist hashtags across replies to create a sort of message threading.

Synonyms

• (go on stubbornly or resolutely): persevere; See also Thesaurus:persevere
• (continue to exist): last, remain; See also Thesaurus:persist

Derived terms

• persist down
• persist it down

 

Related terms

• persistence / persistency
• persistent

Translations

go on stubbornly or resolutely

• American Sign Language: A@NearInsideChesthigh-PalmAcross-A@NearInsideChesthigh-PalmAcross A@InsideChesthigh-PalmDown-A@InsideChesthigh-PalmDown
• Bulgarian: настоявам (bg) (nastojavam), упорствам (bg) (uporstvam)
• Danish: fortsætte (da), vedblive (da)
• Esperanto: persisto
• Gothic: 𐌸𐌰𐌹𐍂𐌷𐍅𐌹𐍃𐌰𐌽 (þairhwisan)
• Hungarian: kitart (hu), ragaszkodik (hu), (adverbs) rendületlenül (hu), kitartóan (hu)
• Latin: persistō, persevērō
• Maori: whakakeke, hohota, oke
• Russian: упо́рствовать (ru) (upórstvovatʹ)
• Scottish Gaelic: lean air
• Swedish: envisas (sv)
• Thai: ยืนหยัด (th) (yʉʉn-yàt)

continue to exist

• Arabic: ثَابَرَ (ṯābara)
• Bulgarian: устоявам (bg) (ustojavam)
• Catalan: persistir (ca)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 堅持／坚持 (zh) (jiānchí)

• Danish: fortsætte (da), vedblive (da)
• Dutch: volharden (nl)
• Finnish: itsepintaisesti pitää kiinni, pysyä järkähtämättömänä, olla edelleen olemassa
• French: persister (fr)
• Galician: persistir
• German: beharren (de)
• Hungarian: fennáll (hu), fennmarad (hu), tovább él, folytatódik (hu)
• Italian: persistere (it)
• Japanese: (to refuse giving up) 固執する (こしつする, koshitsu-suru), 言い張る (ja) (iiharu), 貫く (ja) (tsuranuku); (to last or remain) 持続する (tsuranuku), 残存する (tsuranuku), 尾を引く (tsuranuku)
• Korean: 고집하다 (ko) (gojiphada)
• Maori: whakakeke
• Portuguese: persistir (pt)
• Russian: выживать (ru) (vyživatʹ)
• Scottish Gaelic: lean
• Spanish: persistir (es)
• Swedish: framhärda (sv)
• Turkish: ısrar etmek (tr)
• Vietnamese: kiên trì (vi)

See also

cognate terms using -sist

• absist
• assist
• consist
• desist
• exist
• insist
• resist
• subsist

 

Anagrams

• spiters, Prestis, sprites, Sprites, stirpes, sitreps, priests, respits, stripes, spriest