Today's Word

Pertinacious

per-tuh-NAY-shus

Definition

(adjective) Holding firmly to an opinion, purpose, or course of action; extremely persistent.

Example

Despite repeated setbacks, her pertinacious pursuit of the project impressed everyone on the team.

Word Origin

From Latin pertinax, meaning “very tenacious” or “holding fast.”

Fun Fact

Pertinacious is stronger than persistent—it suggests a stubborn, almost unshakeable grip on a goal or belief. Historically, the word was sometimes used critically, implying someone who refused to yield even when logic (or politeness) suggested they should. Today, it often carries admiration: pertinacious people are the ones who push breakthroughs, finish impossible tasks, and stay steady when others waver.

Previous Words

Lurid

Today's Word

Lurid

LOOR-id

Definition

(adjective) Presented in a shockingly vivid or sensational way, especially regarding unpleasant or scandalous details.

Example

The tabloid’s lurid account of the scandal left nothing to the imagination — every uncomfortable detail splashed across the front page in breathless, unnecessary detail.

Word Origin

Lurid derives from the Latin luridus, meaning “pale yellow,” “wan,” or “ghastly” — originally describing the sickly, pallid color of someone in shock or the eerie glow of fire through smoke. It entered English in the 17th century carrying that same unsettling visual quality, initially used to describe ghastly or glaring light before expanding into its modern sense of sensational, shocking content that feels uncomfortably vivid and impossible to look away from.

Fun Fact

The golden age of lurid storytelling was the American pulp magazine era of the 1920s through 1950s, when publications like True Detective, Spicy Mystery Stories, and Weird Tales competed for readers almost entirely on the strength of their covers — garish, shocking illustrations designed to be impossible to ignore on a newsstand. The term “pulp” referred to the cheap wood-pulp paper they were printed on, but it became synonymous with lurid content so completely that it entered the language as its own genre descriptor. Many of America’s most celebrated writers — including Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and H.P. Lovecraft — got their start writing lurid pulp fiction for pennies per word.

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Pertinacious

Definition

Example

Word Origin

Previous Words

Lurid

Lurid

Definition

Example

Word Origin

Lurid

Munificence

Pejorative

Tawdry

Pedantic