pester

Etymology

It is probably a shortening borrowed from Middle French empestrer (“to hobble an animal, impede, embarrass”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} now French empêtrer,^[3][5] although the OED allows that it may be a shortening of impester, which is recorded only from 1601.^[2] The OED suggests that the prefix was dropped because the link with the French noun for a shackle was no longer obvious, and because Middle French depestrer suggested a simple stem, although no such simple form is attested in French.^[2] The French verb is from Vulgar Latin *impāstōriō (“to hobble”),^[3][4][6][5] formed from in- (“in”) and *pāstōria (“a hobble”),^[4][6] the noun use of the feminine of Latin pāstōrius (“of a herdsman”), from pāstor (“herdsman”).^[3][4][6][7] Merriam-Webster's “Book of Word Histories” finds the noun in the 7th- and 8th-century Latin of the Germanic laws, for a tether on a grazing horse,^[7] and Weekley compares Italian pastoiare (“to fetter, to clog”).^[8] The senses "infest" and "annoy" were influenced by association with pest,^[2][4][9][7] which comes from Latin pestis (“plague”) and has no etymological connection.^[7] The OED also compares the earlier verb poister.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To impede or restrict a person's movement, to entangle or obstruct: 1533, in a letter of J. Russell.^[2] Etymonline gives the 1520s,^[3] Barnhart about 1536.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The French verb had already passed from hobbling an animal to impeding in general, and this is what English first borrowed.^[7] From 1548 the verb was used of crowding or clogging a place or overloading a ship,^[2] and Weekley notes that early use was chiefly nautical, common in Hakluyt and Purchas.^[8] Trench saw the modern sense as growing out of this one: to encumber, then to coop up painfully in a narrow space, and lastly to vex.^[10] Other sources lay more weight on pest: from 1563 rats and insects were said to pester a place, that is, to infest it,^[2] and the Oxford Dictionary of English takes the current sense as an extension of that use.^[11] The sense of troubling a person persistently dates from 1566 in the OED,^[2] the 1560s in Etymonline^[3] and 1586 in Barnhart.^[4] Johnson (1755) defined the verb as to disturb, perplex and harass, with a quotation on being pestered by mice and rats.^[12] Pester the life out of is recorded from 1848, in Thackeray.^[2] The older senses lasted in dialect: Wright records the verb for hampering, crowding and annoying in Scotland and in counties between Yorkshire and Kent, with a Nottinghamshire form pesker.^[13]

Timeline

• 1533 – to impede, entangle or obstruct a person (obsolete after 1870).^[2]
• 1548 – to fill up or clog a place, especially by crowding; to overload a ship.^[2]
• 1563 – of vermin, to infest.^[2]
• 1566 – to trouble or annoy a person persistently.^[2][3]
• 1569 – noun, an obstruction (obsolete after 1614).^[2]
• 1581 – noun, annoyance, trouble (obsolete after 1709).^[2]
• c. 1585 – intransitive, to be bothersome.^[2]
• 1810 – noun, a person or thing that annoys.^[2]
• 1848 – pester the life out of, in Thackeray.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To annoy someone persistently, especially with repeated questions or requests; to nag: The children pestered their aunt for sweets all afternoon.^{[14][15][6][2]}
2. To behave in a persistently irritating or demanding way.^[2]
3. (archaic) Of vermin, to infest a place.^[6][2]
4. (regional) To fill up or clog a place, especially by crowding.^[2][13]
5. (obsolete, 1533–1870) To impede or entangle a person; to encumber.^[2][6][9]
6. (obsolete, 1570–1686) To crowd people or things together.^[2][6][9]

Noun

1. (regional, rare) A person or thing that annoys; a nuisance.^[2][6][13]
2. (obsolete, 1569–1614) An obstruction or encumbrance.^[2][9][6]

Word family

• pesterer
• pesteringly
• pestersome
• unpestered

Related words

• pest
• pastern
• pastor
• impester

Usage notes

A separate verb pester, to pay, is recorded from 1936 in the language of market traders and people who work in travelling shows; the OED takes it as apparently from Angloromani peser- (“to pay”), perhaps influenced by the verb for annoying.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
9. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b c Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
14. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt