# persistent

Pronunciation: US say "pur-SIS-tuhnt" /pɚˈsɪstənt/; UK say "puh-SIS-tuhnt" /pəˈsɪstənt/

## Adjective

1. Refusing to give up or let go, often despite difficulty or discouragement.
   - Simple: Refusing to stop or give up, even when it is hard.
   - _Her persistent lobbying eventually wore down the committee's resistance._
   - _The detective was persistent, following every lead long after others had quit._
2. Repeating again and again in an insistent, hard-to-ignore way.
   - Simple: Happening again and again in a way that is hard to ignore.
   - _Reporters bombarded the minister with persistent demands for a statement._
   - _The persistent ringing of the phone interrupted the meeting three times._
3. Continuing without interruption over a long, indefinite period.
   - Simple: Going on and on for a long time without stopping.
   - _Persistent inflation eroded household savings throughout the decade._
   - _Doctors traced his fatigue to a persistent low-grade infection._
4. Of data or a data structure: remaining in existence after the program that created it has ended, rather than being temporary.
   - Simple: Describes computer data that is still there after the program that made it has closed.
   - _User preferences are written to persistent storage and reloaded at the next launch._
   - _The framework keeps session data persistent across server restarts._
5. Of a plant part: remaining attached past maturity instead of falling off.
   - Simple: Describes a plant part that stays on the plant instead of dropping off when grown.
   - _The persistent sepals remain on the fruit long after the petals have fallen._
   - _Many young oaks keep persistent foliage well into the cold months._
6. Of a state in a stochastic process: one that the process is certain to return to, rather than eventually leaving for good.
   - Simple: Describes a point in a random process that is certain to be reached again.
   - _The symmetric random walk on a line has a persistent origin, returning to it with certainty._
   - _Classifying each state as persistent or transient is the first step in analyzing the chain._
7. Of a fractal process: having a positive Brown function, so that past trends tend to continue rather than reverse.
   - Simple: Describes a fractal process that tends to keep moving the same way it has been moving.
   - _A persistent fractional Brownian motion shows trends that reinforce themselves over time._
   - _Analysts modeled the river levels as a persistent process with long-range correlation._

## Origin

From Latin persistentem, the present participle of persistō ("to continue steadfastly"); by surface analysis, persist + -ent.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/persistent (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).