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

(-)

Lasting forever; unending.

* John Locke

to know whether there were any real being, whose duration has been eternal

* Dryden

Fires eternal in thy temple shine.

* {{quote-news

, year=2012 , date=May 27 , author=Nathan Rabin , title=TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “New Kid On The Block” (season 4, episode 8; originally aired 11/12/1992) , work=The Onion AV Club citation , page= , passage=In a bid to understand the eternal mystery that is woman, Bart goes to the least qualified possible source for advice and counsel: his father, who remarkably seems to have made it to his mid-30s without quite figuring out much of anything. }}

(philosophy) existing outside time; as opposed to sempiternal, existing within time but everlastingly

(dated) Exceedingly great or bad; used as an intensifier.

some eternal villain