# persistence

/pɝˈsɪstəns/ (US) · /pəsˈɪstəns/ (UK)

Source: https://englishreference.com/word/persistence
Updated: 2026-06-20

## Senses

### 1. determination

noun · CEFR B2

the quality of continuing to try to do something even when it is difficult or people are against you.

For teachers: the quality of continuing steadily in an opinion or course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition.

- Her persistence finally paid off when the company offered her the job after three interviews.
- The investigator's persistence in following every lead, no matter how minor, eventually resulted in a breakthrough that solved the decade-old cold case.

### 2. lasting existence

noun · CEFR B2

the fact of something continuing to exist or happen for a long time.

For teachers: the continued existence or occurrence of something, especially beyond the expected duration.

- The persistence of the heavy rain caused flooding in the lower parts of the city.
- Economists are concerned about the persistence of high inflation despite the central bank's aggressive interest rate hikes over the last quarter.

### 3. data storage

noun · CEFR C1 · Technical

the way data stays in a computer system even after the program is turned off.

For teachers: the property of data that survives the termination of the process that created it.

- Without data persistence, all your progress in the game would be lost when you close the app.
- The architecture ensures data persistence by automatically mirroring all transactions to a secondary database located in a different geographic region.

Usage: Uncountable in this technical context.

### 4. iterative operations

noun · CEFR C2 · Technical

the number of times you can do a math operation to a number before it stops changing.

For teachers: the number of times an operation can be iteratively applied to an integer before it reaches a fixed point.

- The additive persistence of 39 is 2 because 3 plus 9 is 12, and 1 plus 2 is 3.
- The student explored the multiplicative persistence of various large integers as part of her senior thesis on recreational number theory.

## Examples

- Her persistence finally paid off when she got the job.
- The detective's persistence in following every lead eventually resulted in a breakthrough for the cold case.
- While talent provides a necessary foundation, it is often the persistence of the researcher that determines whether a theoretical hypothesis is successfully proven through empirical data.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.