Word.ws English Dictionary

pertinacy

pertinacy is the obsolete form of pertinacity.

Meaning of pertinacity

Noun

pertinacity (usually uncountable, plural pertinacities)

  1. (usually) The state or characteristic of being pertinacious.
    • With my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself seemed to increase. It followed my footsteps with a pertinacity which it would be difficult to make the reader comprehend.1846, Edgar Allen Poe, The Black Cat

Noun

pertinacy (uncountable)

  1. The quality or state of being pertinent; pertinence.

Forms of pertinacy

pluralpertinacies

Origin of pertinacy

From Latin pertinacia, from pertinax. See pertinacious.

From Latin pertinere.

Questions about pertinacy

What does pertinacy mean?
Pertinacy means the quality or state of being pertinent; pertinence.
What is pertinacy the obsolete form of?
Pertinacy is the obsolete form of pertinacity.
What part of speech is pertinacy?
Pertinacy is a noun.
What is the plural of pertinacy?
The plural of pertinacy is pertinacies.

Words near pertinacy in the dictionary

  1. pertinacious
  2. pertinaciously
  3. pertinaciousness
  4. pertinacities
  5. pertinacity
  6. pertinacy
  7. pertinant
  8. pertinate
  9. pertinately
  10. pertineer
  11. pertinence

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pertinacy (page history and authors); pertinacity (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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Cite this entry: “pertinacy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pertinacy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.