pertinent
Americanadjective
adjective
Synonym Usage
See apt.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of pertinent
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English, from Latin pertinent- (stem of pertinēns ), present participle of pertinēre “to be applicable, pertain”; see pertain, -ent
Explanation
Something pertinent is relevant and on-point. If you give your best friend pertinent advice, that means the advice is appropriate for the situation. Something pertinent is related to the current topic or situation — and probably helpful too. If you're in math class and you make a comment about World War I, that's likely not pertinent. If you're in music class and you talk about a cello, that probably is pertinent. Pertinent things are appropriate and logical. In most situations, people like to get comments and questions that are pertinent — anything else can just seem like a distraction.
Vocabulary lists containing pertinent
100 Words Every Middle Schooler Should Know
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Tier 2 Words for the SBAC ELA Items
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Grade 10, List 2
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
I only posit that it’s important to understand art — especially contentious art about pertinent crises — on a cellular level to learn what it, and our responses to it, can teach us.
From Salon ● Oct. 2, 2026
AI might be pertinent to the rest of the companies, too, Colas added, but not to their immediate financial results.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 21, 2026
It tells me what I have on tap for the next 24 hours and any pertinent future events, highlighting both items already on my calendar and things still stuck in my Gmail inbox.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
She marvels that “this lifeguarding manual was, absurdly, the first book I had found that offered practical advice pertinent to my circumstance.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026
The causes were many, in his telling, but two of them seemed especially pertinent: Ales Hrdlicka and the overkill hypothesis.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
