Word of the Week (WOW) is a weekly challenge created by Heena Rathore P. It’s a fun way to improve vocabulary by learning new words every week.

To participate, simply do a post with your word and leave the link as a comment on Heena’s WOW post for this week (above link). It’s a nice post to do and will give you some practise with a dictionary, of which there are several online. Illustrations are by no means necessary, but it’s up to you.

I’m up to the letter T this week so I’ll be looking for a good word beginning with U

So, here is my WOW for this week:

 Word: 

Tenacious

Pronunciation

te•na•cious [tuh–ney-shuh s]

Audio Link: tenacious  (Not much difference between the UK and US pronunciation with this word)

Part of Speech: 

Adjective

Related Forms:

Adverb: te·na·cious·ly

Noun: te·na·cious·ness

Noun: tenacity

Noun: tenacity: the quality of being tenacious

 Meaning:

1. Holding fast, or keeping a firm hold, often followed by of, e.g. a tenacious grip on my arm

2. Highly retentive, e.g. a tenacious memory.

3. Persistent, stubborn, or obstinate.

4.  Adhesive or sticky; viscous or glutinous.

5. Holding together; cohesive; not easily pulled apart; tough.

1. Stubborn, dogged, determined, persistent, sure, firm, adamant, staunch, resolute, inflexible, strong-willed, steadfast, unyielding, obstinate, intransigent, immovable, unswerving, obdurate, stiff-necked, pertinacious, tight, forceful, unshakable

2. Synonyms for adhesive meaning (4): clinging, sticky, glutinous, gluey, mucilaginous (e.g. tenacious catarrh in the nasal passage and lungs).

Antonyms:  

Wavering, changeable, vacillating, yielding, flexible, irresolute

Word Origin

Early 17th century: from Latin tenax, tenac- (from tenere ‘to hold’) + ious

Use in a Sentence:

1. It was sad that a man with such a tenacious memory as Albert should succumb to acute dementia so early in life:

2. (Adverb use) King Alfred’s men fought tenaciously against the Danes to save their kingdom:

3. (Noun use) David Beckham’s tenaciousness and commitment to soccer makes him one of the truly great players:

4. A ladybird goes after its garden prey in a tenacious manner:

If you’d like to see more interesting words, visit Heena’s page:

Word Treasure