persistent
per·sis·tent/pɚˈsɪstənt/adjective
persistent is spelled P-E-R-S-I-S-T-E-N-T, 3 syllables: per·sis·tent. The wrong spelling people search most is peristent: about 10 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 500 of all searches for the word. Persistent is an adjective meaning “Obstinately refusing to give up or let go”.
How many letters and syllables are in persistent?
| Letters | 10: P-E-R-S-I-S-T-E-N-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3: per·sis·tent |
| In writing | 7.9 times per million words; the 8,266th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, peristent, about 10 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Rhymes with | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell persistent?
Persistent is spelled P-E-R-S-I-S-T-E-N-T. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 507 of the searches for persistent in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is persistent?
Persistent appears 7.9 times per million words in written English, the 8,266th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce persistent?
- UK /pəˈsɪstənt/
- US /pɚˈsɪstənt/
- Australia /pəˈsɪstənt/
Persistent has 3 syllables, split per·sis·tent in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-persistent.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with persistent?
2 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as persistent from its last stressed vowel (/ɪstənt/):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: prettiness.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of persistent
- more persistent comparative
- most persistent superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does persistent mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Obstinately refusing to give up or let go.
She has had a persistent cough for weeks.
- 2
Insistently repetitive.
There was a persistent knocking on the door.
- 3
Indefinitely continuous.
There have been persistent rumours for years.
- 4
Lasting past maturity without falling off.
Pine cones have persistent scales.
- 5
Of data or a data structure: not transient or temporary, but remaining in existence after the termination of the program that creates it.
Once written to a disk file, the data becomes persistent: it will still be there tomorrow when we run the next program.
- 6
Describing a fractal process that has a positive Brown function
- 7
non-transient.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate persistent?
Wiktionary records one abbreviation of persistent: PBT.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Persistent in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | persistant, tenace |
| German | ausdauernd, hartnäckig, beharrlich , unaufhörlich , ständig |
| Portuguese | persistente |
| Spanish | persistente |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does persistent come from?
From Latin persistentem, present participle of persistō (“continue steadfastly”). By surface analysis, persist + -ent.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).