Literary notes about Tenacious (AI summary)
In literature, "tenacious" is used to evoke an image of persistence and unyielding strength, whether referring to tangible elements or abstract qualities. Authors describe physical properties that cling stubbornly—such as soil that resists being broken or substances that hold fast ([1], [2], [3])—while also attributing it to human traits like an unwavering memory, resolve, or attachment to ideas and relationships ([4], [5], [6], [7]). Additionally, the word characterizes the stubborn endurance of tradition, reputation, or emotion, enriching narratives with a sense of determined vitality ([8], [9], [10], [11]).
- [359] others followed with wooden hoes to break the clods of the rich and tenacious soil.
— from Museum of Antiquity: A Description of Ancient Life by T. L. (Thomas Louis) Haines - and maintained its tenacious grip, almost maddening me with fear.
— from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë - It grows on practically all classes of soil and in all moisture conditions except in swamps, and is a very tenacious tree on shallow, dry soil.
— from Forest Trees of Illinois: How to Know Them by E. E. Nuuttila - He was uncommonly inquisitive; and his memory was so tenacious, that he never forgot any thing that he either heard or read.
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson by James Boswell - On the other hand, the memory should be specially taxed in youth, since it is then that it is strongest and most tenacious.
— from The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism by Arthur Schopenhauer - But once Paul's mind was made up nothing would break his resolution: he had a strong and tenacious will.
— from War Letters of a Public-School Boy by Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones - Adj. retaining &c. v.; retentive, tenacious.
— from Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget - The dogs are of the English bull variety, those plucky, tenacious brutes who will die rather than yield, or even make any manifestation of pain.
— from Nasby in Exile or, Six Months of Travel in England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium, with many things not of travel by David Ross Locke - Wellington was rigid; he gave orders that any one caught in the act should be shot; but rapine is tenacious.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo - The love of well-being is there displayed as a tenacious, exclusive, universal passion; but its range is confined.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 2 by Alexis de Tocqueville - Nay Sir Peter they are People of Rank and Fortune—and remarkably tenacious of reputation.
— from The School for Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
