DictionaryAI

insist

verb
in-SIST/ɪnˈsɪst/

Formsinsists, insisting, insisted

3 meanings of insist

Practice

  1. 1
    verbtransitive or intransitive
    To demand repeatedly that something happen or be done, restating the demand and refusing to drop it despite requests to give it up.

    Union leaders insist on safer working conditions before any return to work.

    She insisted repeatedly that the contract be honored despite their objections.

    Similardemand, press, require, stipulate, urge

    Note

    Demanding rather than claiming, and the grammar shows it. The that-clause takes the bare subjunctive: the Prime Minister insisted that his Chancellor resign. Write resigns and you are back in the asserting sense. More often the demand is a noun after on, as in insist on his resignation or insist on what we agreed. "I'm afraid I have to insist" is the courteous way of refusing to give ground.

  2. 2
    verbtransitive or intransitive
    To put forward and maintain a claim emphatically, asserting it with force even when it is challenged.

    Witnesses insist that the car never stopped at the crossing.

    He insisted on his innocence throughout the trial.

    Similarmaintain, assert, claim, contend, swear

    Note

    The asserting sense, where a that-clause keeps an ordinary verb because it reports how things are: "I insist that my secretary dresses nicely" states a fact. Change dresses to the bare subjunctive dress, and the sentence becomes the demanding sense, a call for something to happen. When the claim is a noun rather than a clause, on or upon does the work: he insisted on his innocence.

  3. 3
    verbobsolete
    To stand, rest, or lean upon something: said in older geometry of a line or figure resting on another.
    Angles likewise which insist on the Diameter, are all Right Angles.
    1709, Venturus Mandey, Synopsis Mathematica Universalis
    Note

    Older geometry used the verb for one figure standing on another, close to its Latin source īnsistere, "to stand on." Venturus Mandey's Synopsis Mathematica Universalis (1709) says that angles which "insist on the Diameter" are all right angles. The sense is obsolete. Read it as "rest on" in older mathematics, and in your own writing use stands on, which carries no hint of a demand.

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Origin

"Insist" comes partly from Middle French "insister," which came from Latin "insistere," and partly as a back-formation from "insistence."