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Pertinacious vs Impertinent - What's the difference?

pertinacious | impertinent |

As adjectives the difference between pertinacious and impertinent

is that pertinacious is holding tenaciously to an opinion or purpose while impertinent is insolent, ill-mannered.

As a noun impertinent is

an impertinent individual.

pertinacious

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Holding tenaciously to an opinion or purpose.
  • * 1884', , "The Path of Duty" in ''The English Illustrated Magazine'' ' 2 (15): 240–256.
  • *:He would really have to make up his mind to care for his wife or not to care for her. What would Lady Vandeleur say to one alternative, and what would little Joscelind say to the other? That is what it was to have a pertinacious father and to be an accommodating son.
  • Stubbornly resolute or tenacious.

    • Synonyms

    * See also

    Related terms

    * pertinaciousness * pertinacity

    impertinent

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • insolent, ill-mannered
  • * Tillotson
    • things that are impertinent to us
  • * Jeremy Taylor
    • How impertinent that grief was which served no end!
  • irrelevant (opposite of pertinent)

    • Usage notes

    Although, historically, definition 2 was the original (derived from the French below) usage; meaning gradually changed to definition 1. More recently general usage has come to, once again, incorporate definition 2. As many older speakers will consider definition 2 incorrect, avoiding the word altogether may be advisable. The construction "not pertinent" is one possible alternative.

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An impertinent individual.
  • * (Maria Edgeworth)
    • comfortably recessed from curious impertinents
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