importunate

<font size="-1" face="arial, helvetica"> <p> <strong> <font color="#000066">Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 11, 2021 is:</font> </strong> </p> <p> <strong>importunate</strong> &#149; \im-POR-chuh-nut\&nbsp; &#149; <em>adjective</em><br /> <p><strong>1 :</strong> troublesomely urgent <strong>:</strong> overly persistent in request or demand</p> <p><strong>2 :</strong> <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/troublesome">troublesome</a></p> </p> <p> <strong>Examples:</strong><br /> <p>"It seems apt that in the play's first scene, set at 6 a.m. in Lagos, Nigeria, an <em>importunate</em> young customer asks the barber he's so rudely awakened to give him an 'aerodynamic' cut." — <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/04/theater/barber-shop-chronicles-review.html">Ben Brantley, <em>The New York Times</em>, 4 Dec. 2019</a></p> <p>"But when I spoke to Nadella he allowed that when you see people in their homes, with their noisy children and <em>importunate</em> pets, struggling to stay focussed and upbeat, 'you have a different kind of empathy for your co-workers.'" — <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/02/01/has-the-pandemic-transformed-the-office-forever">John Seabrook, <em>The New Yorker</em>, 1 Feb. 2021</a></p> </p> <p> <strong>Did you know?</strong><br /> <p><em>Importunate</em> has been part of the English language since the 16th century, and the synonymous <em><a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/importune">importune</a></em> arrived even earlier, in the 15th century. The seemingly superfluous inclusion of the suffix <em>-ate</em> in <em>importunate</em> is a bit mysterious; one theory is that English speakers modeled the adjective after words like <em><a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/obstinate">obstinate</a></em>. <em>Importune</em> and <em>importunate</em> come from Latin <em>importunus</em>. The prefix <em>im-</em> means "not," and <em>importunus</em> can be contrasted with Latin