Word.ws English Dictionary

doggedly

/ˈdɒɡɪdli/US/ˈdɔɡədli/

doggedly adverb: in a way that is stubbornly persistent.

Adverb

doggedly (comparative more doggedly, superlative most doggedly)

  1. In a way that is stubbornly persistent.
    • I grew moody, silent, and unsocial, but studied on doggedly and incessantly.1820, Washington Irving, “The Early Experiences of Ralph Ringwood”, in The Crayon Papers
    • I continued to pound along doggedly. I was grimly resolute.1906, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 6, in Love Among the Chickens
  2. (dated) sullenly, gloomily
    • 'Nay,' said Dr Johnson, 'a man may write at any time, if he will set himself DOGGEDLY to it.' [Footnote: This word is commonly used to signify sullenly, gloomily and in that sense alone it appears in Dr Johnson's Dictionary. I suppose he meant by it 'with an OBSTINATE RESOLUTION, similar to that of...1785, James Boswell, The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D.

Examples of doggedly in a sentence

  • He continued tenaciously, doggedly continuing over all obstacles.
  • "Doggedly loyal to Pendergast was Truman, faithful to the "corruptioneer" who had sent him to the Senate."
  • It's also a city which has been doggedly pressing (to little avail) for an integrated transport system for two decades.

All 10 example sentences with doggedly

Forms of doggedly

comparativemore doggedly
superlativemost doggedly

Origin of doggedly

From Middle English doggedlich, doggetly, doggidly, doggydly; equivalent to dogged + -ly.

Questions about doggedly

What does doggedly mean?
Doggedly means in a way that is stubbornly persistent.
What part of speech is doggedly?
Doggedly is an adverb.
How do you pronounce doggedly?
Doggedly is pronounced /ˈdɔɡədli/ (US).

Words near doggedly in the dictionary

  1. dogged it
  2. dogged out
  3. dogged up
  4. doggeder
  5. doggedest
  6. doggedly
  7. doggedness
  8. doggednesses
  9. dogger
  10. Dogger Bank
  11. Dogger Bank itch

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: doggedly (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-doggedly.wav.

Cite this entry: “doggedly.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/doggedly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.