Adjective

(en adjective)

Obstinately refusing to give up or let go.

She has had a persistent cough for weeks.

* {{quote-news

, year=2011 , date=November 10 , author=Jeremy Wilson , title= England Under 21 5 Iceland Under 21 0: match report , work=Telegraph citation , page= , passage=The most persistent tormentor was Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, who scored a hat-trick in last month’s corresponding fixture in Iceland. His ability to run at defences is instantly striking, but it is his clever use of possession that has persuaded some shrewd judges that he is an even better prospect than Theo Walcott.}}

Insistently repetitive.

There was a persistent knocking on the door.

Indefinitely continuous.

There have been persistent rumours for years.

(botany) Lasting past maturity without falling off.

Pine cones have persistent scales.

*

The Jubulaceae have a leaf whose lobule, usually transformed into a water-sac, is normally very narrowly attached to the stem and to the dorsal lobe; indeed some Frullania'' taxa reproduce vegetatively by dropping the dorsal lobes, but not the lobules, and ''Neohattoria has caducous lobules but persistent lobes.

(computing) About some data or data structures: existing after the execution of the program. Remaining in existence past the lifetime of the program that creates it.

Once written to a disk file the data becomes persistent and it will still be there tomorrow when we run the next program.

This way transient value becomes persistent .

(mathematics) Describing a fractal process that has a positive Brown function

(mathematics, stochastic processes, of a state) non-transient.

Adjective

(en adjective)

Contemptuous of authority; willfully disobedient; rebellious.

* 1671 , (John Milton), “(Samson Agonistes)” in The Poetical Works of John Milton , volume 4 (edited by Henry John Todd; published in 1801), page 505:

The queen hears of it; takes occa?ion to pa??e wher he is, on purpo?e, that, under prætense of recon?iling to him, or ?eeking to draw a kind retractation from him of the cen?ure on the marriage; to which end ?he ?ends a courtier before, to ?ound whether he might be per?uaded to mitigate his ?entence; which not finding, ?he her?elf craftily a??ays; and, on his con?tancie, ?ounds an accu?ation to Herod of a contumacious affront, on ?uch a day, before many peers; præpares the king to ?ome pa??ion, and at la?t, by her daughter’s dancing, effects it.

* 1837 , (Thomas Carlyle), The French Revolution , Book 2.V:

In all places too are Dissident Priests; whom the Legislative will have to deal with: contumacious individuals, working on that angriest of passions; plotting, enlisting.

(legal) Willfully disobedient to the summons or orders of a court.