importunate

American  

[im-pawr-chuh-nit] / ɪmˈpɔr tʃə nɪt /

adjective

1. urgent or persistent in solicitation, sometimes annoyingly so.

2. pertinacious, as solicitations or demands.

3. troublesome; annoying.

   importunate demands from the children for attention.

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importunate British  

/ ɪmˈpɔːtjʊnɪt /

adjective

1. persistent or demanding; insistent

2. rare troublesome; annoying

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Other Word Forms

• importunately adverb
• importunateness noun
• unimportunate adjective
• unimportunately adverb
• unimportunateness noun

Etymology

Origin of importunate

1520–30; importune (adj.) + -ate ¹

Example Sentences

The number, a duet for Victoria and Jonquil, doesn’t make importunate emotional demands and is all the more poignant for its restraint.

From Los Angeles Times

On the face of it, they satisfied an importunate US last week by banning the Chinese telecoms firm Huawei from doing business in Britain.

From The Guardian

As Emma’s plans stutter forward and amusingly slip off course, the filmmakers’ mild interventions feel less forced, more organic; even a seductive dance and an importunate nosebleed end up working nicely.

From New York Times

It seems apt that in the play’s first scene, set at 6 a.m. in Lagos, Nigeria, an importunate young customer asks the barber he’s so rudely awakened to give him an “aerodynamic” cut.

From New York Times

"I hope that when we go out from this place tonight and we are waylaid by importunate nose-ringed climate change protesters, we remind them that she was also right about greenhouse gases."

From BBC