doggedly
Americanadverb
Etymology
Origin of doggedly
Explanation
The adverb doggedly means "tenaciously" or "with strong determination." If your dog ran away, you might doggedly pursue him across the park, down the road, and through the woods. Doggedly is the adverb form of the adjective dogged. In the 1300s, both words meant having the negative qualities of a dog, or mean and cruel. By the late 1700s, both had evolved to mean "persistent" and "with determination." If you doggedly insisted on your innocence, despite the evidence linking you to your brother's missing baseball mitt, you might then search doggedly for the mitt, not stopping until you found it in the dog house.
Vocabulary lists containing doggedly
The Outsiders
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A Raisin in the Sun
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"The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell
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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.
She doggedly pursues a role in the third season of hit TV drama The White Lotus, self-taping an audition that wins her the role of kind-hearted wellness coach Mook Sornsin.
From BBC ● Oct. 10, 2026
The characters in her books doggedly seek the joys of love and art while the apocalypse rages in the background.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 8, 2026
For over a year, Meloni has doggedly maintained a balancing act between the U.S. and Europe, playing down differences with Trump and insisting that the trans-Atlantic alliance is alive and well.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 16, 2026
Microsoft was also late to cloud software, before doggedly making the pivot under CEO Nadella.
From Barron's ● Mar. 13, 2026
Luke looked at her and nodded; he was arranging the coffee cups on a tray, and the doctor had already gone on, doggedly opening doors and propping them.
From "The Haunting of Hill House" by Shirley Jackson
Definitions 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.
