tenacity

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA: /təˈnæs.ɪ.ti/
• (US) IPA: /təˈnæsətʲi/

Etymology

From Latin tenācitās.

tenacious +‎ -ity

Noun

tenacity (plural tenacities)

1. The quality or state of being tenacious; as, tenacity, or retentiveness, of memory; tenacity, or persistency, of purpose.
   • 2009, Jorge Cham, PHD Comics: Softball: younger and faster

     — Our opponents may be younger, faster and less out of shape than we are, but we have something they’ll never have!

     — Tenure?

     — Tenacity!

2. The quality of bodies which keeps them from parting without considerable force; cohesiveness; the effect of attraction; – as distinguished from brittleness, fragility, mobility, etc.
3. The quality of bodies which makes them adhere to other bodies; adhesiveness; viscosity.
4. The greatest longitudinal stress a substance can bear without tearing asunder, – usually expressed with reference to a unit area of the cross section of the substance, as the number of pounds per square inch, or kilograms per square centimeter, necessary to produce rupture.

Synonyms

• (state of being tenacious): retentiveness, persistency
• (quality keeping bodies together): cohesiveness
• (quality making bodies adhere): adhesiveness, viscosity

Antonyms

• (quality keeping bodies together): brittleness, fragility, mobility

Translations

quality or state of being tenacious

Dutch: volhardendheid (nl) f. Finnish: sitkeys (fi), sinnikkyys (fi) French: ténacité (fr) f. German: Zähigkeit (de) f., Beharrlichkeit (de) f.

Indonesian: kengototan (id) Irish: diongbháilteacht (ga) f. Latin: tenācitās (la) f.

quality of bodies which keeps them from parting without considerable force

Finnish: sitkeys (fi)

quality of bodies which makes them adhere to other bodies

greatest longitudinal stress a substance can bear without tearing asunder

Finnish: vetolujuus, vetomurtolujuus

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.

Translations to be checked

Greek: επιμονή (epimone) f. Spanish: tenacidad f.