tenacity

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English tenacite,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French ténacité and directly borrowed from Latin tenācitās (“a holding fast”),^[2][3][4] from tenāx (“holding fast, tenacious”),^[5][3][6] from teneō (“to hold”),^[3][7] from the root Proto-Indo-European *ten-.^[8] The OED takes it from the rare Latin noun and notes the French word from the 14th century,^[5] and Etymonline dates the French word likewise.^[3] The same root gave Latin tendō (“to stretch”), the source of tend.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The quality of holding firmly, and stickiness: before 1425, in a Middle English translation of Chauliac's surgery, where a cancer is said to be so named for its tenacite, its holding fast to the body.^[2] Etymonline dates the word to the early 15th century,^[3] and the OED's first record is from 1526, in W. Bonde's Pylgrimage of Perfection.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The MED already records both the physical sense, adhesiveness, and the figurative one, obstinacy.^[2] The OED dates firmness of hold or purpose from 1526 and cohesiveness, toughness or stickiness from 1555; the retentiveness of memory follows in 1814, in Scott's Waverley.^[5][9] A sense "miserliness", a tight hold on money, lasted from 1586 to 1706.^[5][4] Johnson (1755) defined it only physically, as viscosity or adhesion.^[10] The Mapping Metaphor project links its sense of strength with that of retaining, in the late 16th century.^[11]

Timeline

• c. 1425 – holding firmly, adhesiveness; obstinacy.^[2]
• 1526 – firmness of hold or purpose; persistence.^[5][9]
• 1555 – cohesiveness, toughness, stickiness.^[5][9]
• 1586 – miserliness (obsolete after 1706).^[5][4]
• 1814 – retentiveness of memory.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Persistence and determination; the quality of holding firmly to a purpose, belief or thing: She pursued the case with great tenacity.^[6][5][4]
2. The quality of keeping a firm hold, physically: the tenacity of a climbing plant.^[5][4]
3. Retentiveness, as of memory.^[5][6]
4. Cohesiveness or toughness; stickiness or viscosity.^[5][4][10]
5. (obsolete, 1586–1706) Miserliness; a tight hold on money.^[5][4]

Related words

• tenacious
• tenable
• tenet
• tend

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
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 Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b c Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
10. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ Mapping Metaphor with the Historical Thesaurus, University of Glasgow, mappingmetaphor.arts.gla.ac.uk