Word.ws English Dictionary

persist

Syllables: per·sistUK/pəˈsɪst//pɚˈsɪst/

persist verb: to go on stubbornly or resolutely.

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.
    • 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...1912, Norman Angell, Peace Theories and the Balkan War
    Synonyms:
    persevere
  2. (intransitive) To repeat an utterance.
  3. (intransitive) To continue to exist.
    • Much of this prejudice, indeed, persists; for instance, in the heavy handicappings with which insurance companies saddle their West Indian policies, […]1868, The British and Foreign Medico-chirurgical Review, page 238
    • Throughout the period, toothy giants persisted in the oceans. Perhaps the most spectacular was the megalodon shark.2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: A Natural History, page 139
    Synonyms:
    last
  4. (copulative, intransitive, obsolete) To continue to be; to remain.
    Synonyms:
    hold
  5. (transitive) To cause to persist; make permanent.
    • 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.2006, Marco Bellinaso, ASP.NET 2.0 Website Programming
    • 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.2009, Alistair Croll, Sean Power, Complete Web Monitoring

persist meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

persist in Tamil

உறுதியாயிரு, பிடிவாதமாயிரு, நீண்ட காலம் மாறாமலிரு

persist in Urdu

اڑنا, ہٹ لگانا, اصرار کرنا, ضد کرنا, زور دینا

persist in Bengali

জিদ করা, অটল থাকা, টিকে থাকা

persist in Malayalam

നിർബ്ബന്ധമായി തുടരുക, സ്ഥിരമായിരിക്കുക, നിലനിൽക്കുക
More languagesFewer languages
persist in Kannada
ಪಟ್ಟುಹಿಡಿ, ತಾಳು, ಉರಿಸು, ಉಳಿ
persist in Arabic
ثَابَرَ ṯābara
persist in Thai
ยืนหยัด yʉʉn-yàt
persist in Vietnamese
kiên trì

Examples of persist in a sentence

  • The salesman persisted in quoting a rate higher than was listed, until we called him on it.
  • We got home just in time to watch the clouds start to persist it down.
  • It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

All 40 example sentences with persist

Synonyms of persist

6 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of persist

Forms of persist

third-person singular presentpersists
present participlepersisting
past participlepersisted
pastpersisted

Past tense of persist: persisted

Origin of persist

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

Words formed from persist

Words that rhyme with persist

43 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about persist

What does persist mean?
Persist means to go on stubbornly or resolutely.
What is persist in Tamil?
Persist in Tamil is உறுதியாயிரு, பிடிவாதமாயிரு, நீண்ட காலம் மாறாமலிரு. See Persist meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is persist?
Persist is a verb.
How do you pronounce persist?
Persist is pronounced /pɚˈsɪst/ (US).
What is the past tense of persist?
The past tense of persist is persisted.

Words near persist in the dictionary

  1. persipan
  2. persipans
  3. Persis
  4. Persism
  5. Persisms
  6. persist
  7. persist down
  8. persist it down
  9. persistability
  10. persistable
  11. persistance

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: persist (page history and authors); persist (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); persist (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Persist (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); persist (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); persist (Kannada Wiktionary) (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: en-us-persist.ogg.

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